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PROPERTY OF

iimn

ARTES SClEhfTIA VER.ITAS

.E NEWS, Inc.

Dale, N. Y. w s.a.)

* 4..

n
i

I ,

»-».»-♦-♦-♦-♦-♦-♦-

I i

DR. L W. DELAURANCE
.».»- » .»-»-»-♦-» — »-♦-»- 4.-4, -■ ► -♦-♦-III- . J ..^

MMM

The Sacred Book of Death

Hindu Spiritism
Soul Transition and Soul

Reincarnation

EXCLUSIVE INSTRUCTION for the personal use of Dr.

de Lanrence's Cheias (Disciples) in Hindu Spiritisin,

Soul Transition, Reincarnation, Clairvoy-

ancy and Occultism

(Illustrated)

DR. L. W^. DE LAURENCE

Maftcr Adept and Famous Occult Magician, by Alchemy

and Fire

AUTHOR OP

^'Th4 Great Book of Magical Art^ Hindu Magic and East
Indian Occultism,*' '* The Book of Secret Hindu, Ceremonial
and Talimanic Magic," ""The Holy Bible Defended,'*
{An Occult Interpretation of the Books of Holy Scrip-
ture, Raising the Astral Body of Samuel^ The
Witch ofEndor, eU.) ''Medical Hypno-
sis," (Physician's EdiHon), ''Hindu
Hypnotism '* etc.

PablitlMd and Sold, m mathoriMd l»y Dr. d« LauMae*, oalx by

de Laurence^ Scott & Co

MASONIC TEMPLE. CHICAGO, ILL., U. S. A.

Price, $8.00

STUDENTS' OCCULT

EDITION

^/./- ^

TrM ^

CONTENTS

Prefgoe • •

• • • •

Introduction

• . .

CHAKFER I.

Spiritism

CHAPTER 11.

The Link or Perispirlt

CHAPTER III.

Hindu Spiritism .

CHAKrER IV.
CHAKI'ER V.

Insanity
Death

83
130

CHAPTER VI.

God . . .

137

CHAPTER VII.
CHAKIER VIII

Soul and Body

Dreams

143
153

CHAFFER IX.

Death Trance

173

CHAPTER X.

Benevolent Spirits .

209

CHAKIER XI.

Casting Out Evil Spirits

225

CHAPTER XII.

Familiar Spirits

241

CHAPTER XIII.

Sorcerers and Conjurors of Spirits

257

CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.

Revealing the Future
Loss Of Those We Love

265
281

CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII

Resurrection of the Body .
Earthly Joys and Sorrows .

287
293

CHAPTER XVIII

Paradise, Hell and Purgatory

297

CHAPTER XIX.

Suicide . . . .

305

CHAPTER XX.

Evil Passions

315

CHAPTER XXI

Selfishness

321

CHAKIER XXII.

Reincarnation

343

CHAPTER XXIIl.
CHAPTER XXIV.

Lessons in Hindu Spiritism and Mag

Instructions for the Invocations and
Convocations of Spirits

ic 363
369

CHAPTER XXV.

Sacred Magic

393

/ -

Hindu Sanscrit

r or SANSCRIT (cuefuDy cod-
VnuMlricalty fonned fnta mm — to-
ind the pa.pu Imta-^nftde. It i> thut
I to the Pnkrit,— common, natural, the
Qome gnrcD to the vernacular <lia]ect of India.)
Q The ancicat language of ibe Hindut, and the olderi and
moit pciniitiTe of the Indo-European bwgues. It has \oa%
nnce ceaied to be a living language but b it moat of the
literature of the Hindui it written frtxn the ddett portion of
the Vedat oavniii, (Veda). To the love* of tribet and
naliou of diacocdant qieech m India. Sanioit has long beea
the sacred and literary dialect, and all the cultivated tongues
of moden India are as full of Sanscrit words as the European
tongues are of Latin: It is a hi^ily inflected language and to
f^otogiits is die most vahtable of tongues owing to its freedom
fron the camifitiaoM and disguises of i^oentic changes and
from obtiteraBon of dte cii^nal meaning of its vocabies.
4] The cUsacal Sanscnt is a <Wect which, at a later period,
after die full possession of Hiitdustan and the development of
Brahmanitm out of the NnqJer and more primitive religimaod
poby of Vedic times, became ettabbhed as the literary
language of the wluJe country, and has ever Knee maintained
dtat character, bong still learned for writing and ipealcing in
die Lamasaries and Ten4>les as wdl as in native scbotJs of
die Bramanic priesthood. From die fact diat inscriptimB
in a lata f<mn of Indian language are found dating bom the
third coitury B. C it it bferred that the Sanscrit mutt al
leatt as early as that have ceased lo be a vernacular tongue.

Dr. de Laarence,

MANDAMUS

OBEY THIS WARNING t

CHIS Famoui "Book of Death. Hindu Splrittom.
Soul Transition and Soul Reincarnation** bjr

Dr.de LaiiKnce,The Mow* ofthe HindM," is diepenoiuil property c(

ofdieCityof-

Stateof.

4 The same being a rare and vahiabie Volume of Ancient Hindu
Wiidoin and Celestial Fire, written and ananged in the Hindu
manner of Sdf-Instruction and, m consequence of this, eveqr person is
^arne(/ and most earnestly cautioned n€tper fo 5^ea/ the same nor dis-
tort nor tamper with the Teachings or Formulas given therdn, (or if
you steal diis V<Jume or, by intention cause Perveiiion of die Formulas,
Sacred Hindu Names or Seals contained therein you will attract an
Evil Spirit and odier Powerful influences ^hkh ^tt most sart^
do you injury and autse you to rtgrdjiput dMUubtt acUons to
iht iftry of your dexth^

' Should you be so foolish or rash as to steal this Sacred Volume,
which is the private property of thy neighbor, before you have read
and received this Mandamus, i«6rm tfcrnfo AAn «/ once and no harai
wiD befall you, but if thee dares to disobey this wammg "^voe be
unto thte^ for the Great System and Order of *'Hindu Adepts and
Master Lamas of hdia and China'* have dieir Astral and Occult
Guards who can witness your every action, see and know every thought
that goes throu^^ your brain, and they wiD nothesitate, for they know
/oo ^i;e//, how to avenge diefts or tamperings vridi dieir Occult teachings,
so beware and obey this Mandamus, otherwise you wiH nevtf know
peace, fortune or contentment afterwards.

(Signed) S)r. de Laurence*

PREFACE

Death and Magic have always been contemporary
and always shall be in every age of the world. Death
and Soul Transition, Spirit Communication and
Magic were contemporaneous with the birth of man
in this world, which to all were like unto a vale of
tears. Death and immortality to the ^ul of the
western individual is a sad recital throughout, be-
cause the htunan heart has in all ages hungered for
true knowledge of the existence and presence of the
dear departed. However, they are oftentimes ri-
diculous owing to the Christian Doctrine and theory
of atonement which is founded upon a total miscon-
ception and crude interpretation of the true teaching
of Spiritism, and are so glaring that little wonder
it be that the human soul of man recoils from the
horrible picture painted by many, of the future life
of man. Oriental teachings and traditions teach
man the mysteries of his present and future life.
Eastern magic teaches man the art of performing
things which surpass the powers of his physical and
material nature. These teachings are thought by
some to be more than ordinarily bad, in consequence
of a compact, expressed or implied, with evil spirits.

18 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

This IS nonsensical, for by True Magic, which same
not being Sorcery or Black Magic, man can find
profit and be taught that which is of vital importance
to himself and family.

Man will discover Magic at every epoch in his-
tory. True, man has made use of Magic to domineer
over man. The chroniclers of every age teem to
overflowing with narrations of Magical Operations
as does the far reaching memories of every human
soul which^ follows these facts. The Sorcerer and
his Disciple who pay homage to evil spirits always
have had their tables heaped with viands and wine,
as the Witch or Sorcerer may become very power-
ful indeed in suspending the faculties of man and
even animals, and alter certain things, also of bind-
ing to sickness, love or hatred, but in time, surely
self-torment shall consume his soul, neither shall
he know any happiness. This is sacred truth, incon-
trovertible, for remember that that which thee seeks
thee will attract to thy soul, and what thee asks for
with thy Occult Powers, for these are the terrible
instruments of the Sorcerer, thee will surely receive
a thousand fold, for he who is in league with fa-
miliar spirits will regret it.

INTRODUCTION

The teachings of East Indian Occultism are the
True Wisdom, and he who hath it not can in no way
penetrate the True Secrets of Spirit Magic, and he
but buildeth upon a foundation of sand, and his
building can in no way last. Many conjurers of
Black and Devilish Arts have attempted to persuade
me to be wise, while they themselves, with words
which I myself well understood, but which is lit-
tle known, and with extravagant Symbols made bells
to sound, and while with execrable conjurations
made appear in glasses him who had committed a
theft, and they made a liquor causing an old man
to appear young (and that only for the space of
two hours and no longer). All these things which
they indeed taught me, but the whole was but van-
ity, low curiosity, and a pure deception of the Evil
Spirits leading to no useful end imaginable, and
tending to the loss of the Soul. I having the true
veritable knowledge of the Sacred Hindu Magic,
and banished them from mine heart and desires.
These impious conjurers, with the aid and assist-
ance of Evil Spirits, performed astounding feats.
They used to render themselves invisible, so as to

20 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

be able to enter locked-up rooms. They^knew our
greatest secrets, and once they told me things
which only I alone could know. But this art cost
them too dearly for the Evil Spirits had made them
swear in the Pact that they would use all their
secrets to the dishonor of their friends, and to the
prejudice of their neighbors. Ultimately their soul
and body was dragged through deep misery. This
was all the profits they drew from their Diabolical
Science and Damnable Magic. In some parts of the
Orient I found an infinitude of Black Magicians
who only occupied themselves in killing and maim-
ing men, in putting discord among married peo-
ple, in causing divorces, in tying witch-knots in
osier or willow branches to stop the flow of milk
in the breasts of nursing women, and similar infa-
mies. But these miserable wretches had also made
a Pact with Evil Spirits, and had become their
slaves, having sworn unto them that they wbuld
work without cessation to destroy the happiness of
all living creatures. Some of these had two years
(for their Pact) to run, some three, and after that
time they underwent the same fate as all who form
a Pact with Evil Spirits. At Benares, India, I was
introduced to a young Indian woman, who one eve-
ning invited me to go with her, assuring me that
without any risk she would conduct me to a place
where I greatly desired to find myself. I allowed

SOUL BBINCABNATION. tl

myself (in order to find her out) to be persuaded
by her promises. She then gave unto me an ungent
with which I rubbed the principal pulses of my feet
and hands; the wliich she did also; and at first it
appeared to me that I was flying in the air in the
place which I wished, and which I had in no way
mentioned to her.

I pass over in silence out of respect for my
Disciples, that which I saw. After I appeared to
have remained there a long while, I felt as if I were
just awakening from a profound sleep, and I had
a decided pain in my head. I turned round and saw
that she was seated at my side. She began to ask
me what I had seen, and that which I had seen was
something I never wish to behold again. I was,
however, much astonished, because it appeared to
me as if I had been really and corporeally in the
place, and there in reality to have seen that which
had happened. One day I asked her to go alone to
that same place, and to bring me back news of a
Hindu friend whom I knew for certain was distant
200 leagues. She promised to do so in the space of
an hour. She rubbed herself with the same ungent,
and I was very expectant to see her fly away, but
she fell to the ground and remained there about
three hours as if she were dead, so that I began to
think that she really was dead. At last she began
to stir like a person who is waking, then she rose

22 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

to an upright position, and with much pleasure
began to give me the account of her expedition,
saying that she had been in the place where my
friend was, and told me all that he was doing;
which was entirely in keeping with his profession,
of which I had told her nothing. Whence I con-
cluded that what she had just told me was not a
simple dream, and that this tmgent was not a causer
of Astral sleep; whereon she confessed to me that
this tingent had been given to her by the Evil Spirits.
All the Arts of. the Witches and Conjurers are
Enchantments and Fascinations, through which
wonderful things can be done. But the Evil Spirits
hold them enchained in these accursed Arts so that
the Foundation of the True Magic may be unknown
to them which would render them more powerful
than they; and I was the more confirmed in this
opinion because their operations were of no practical
use whatever, and caused injury unto him who put
them into practice, as in fact many of them avowed
plainly to me that they were envious because I was
an Adept who had the True and Sacred Magic of the
Hindus. There are also many operations which
they say are handed down from the Ancient Zuroos.
There is an Art called White and Black Xoozj;
another Angelical, Teatim; in which I avow that I
have seen Orations so learned and beautiful, that
had I not known the venom therein hidden, I would

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 83

have given them herein. I say all this because it is
very easy for him who is not constantly upon his
guard to err in studying Spirit Magic

SYMBOLS

One old scribbler of symbols taught me many
enchantments which only tended to work evil. He
performed other operations by means of Evil Spirits
and certain secret fumigations, which were all odd.
and of a triple proportion, in no way similar to the
other, and for proof of this, he caused by such means
in my presence a very fine tree which was near our
Temple to fall to the ground, and all the leaves and
fruits were consumed in a very short time. And he
told me that in numbers there was hidden a very
great Mystery, which I already had knowledge of,
because that by means of numbers one can perform
all the operations for friendships, riches, honors,
love and all sorts of things, good and evil; and he
assured me that he had tried them, and that some
that he knew were very true for they had succeeded
with him. With regard to this particular, I found
out the reason through an ancient Hindu Priest,
who told me that this came and depended from a
Divine Mystery, that is 'to say, from the Qubalah,
and that without that, one could not succeed. All
' these things have I beheld, and many others, and
those who possessed these secrets gave them to me

24 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

out of friendship. I have never taught these recipes
afterwards, they being absolutely things very far
removed from the Will of God, and contrary to the
charity which we owe unto our neighbor. Every
learned and prudent man may fall if he be not de-
fended and guided by the good spirits who advised
and aided me, and prevented me from falling into
such a state of wretchedness, and who led me unde-
serving from the mire of darkness unto the Light
of the True Magic. I have known and felt the
eflFects of the goodness of a certain Wise Hindu
Priest, who, of his own free will, and before I had
asked him so to do, accepted me for his Disciple.
And before that I had declared my wish unto him he
would accomplish and fulfil my desire; and all that
I wished to obtain from him he knew before I could
open my mouth. Also he recounted to me all that
I had seen, done, and suffered from the time of my
birth down to that moment; and this in words
obscure as it were prophetic, which I did not then
fully comprehend, but which I understood later.
He told me many things touching my good fortune
and that my teachings would become famous in
America, as they have, but which was the principal
thing, he discovered to me the Source of the Verita-
ble Magic, which according to their custom, I have
in turn communicated unto my Disciples, in "The
Great Book of Magical Art, Hindu Mag^c and East

SOUL REINCABNATION. 25

Indian Occultism," after they have fulfilled the req-
uisite conditions without the accomplishment of
which the power and this Sacred Hindu Magic can-
not be exercised, and which I have recounted in this
volume. After he did manifest unto me the Regimen
of the Mystery of that Sacred Hindu Magic which
was exercised and put into practice by his fore-
fathers and progenitors, Razizun, Uzujb, Iquzi and
Tneby, among whom the last misused it, and he re-
ceived the punishment thereof during his life.

In the Great Book of Magical Art I have described
the whole faithfully and clearly, in order that if the
Lord God should wish to dispose of me before these
teachings shall have attained great use in this age,
thou shalt find this great volume an inestimable
treasure and a faithful master and teacher, because
there are very many Powerful Secrets in the S)rm-
bols of this Book which I have made experiment of
with mine own self and they are perfectly true, and
which afterwards many of my Disciples which are in
every country in the world have performed. I found
no one who worked these things truly without this
"Great Book of Magical Art," and although many
have walked in the same path, nevertheless the
Hindu Priest as a just Judge, did not in any way
wish to grant unto them the Sacred Magic in its
entirety, because they desired "The Great Book of
Magical Art, Hindu Magic and East Indian Occult-

26 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

ism" to be published by myself. It matters not
whatever religion you believe in you can arrive at
the perfection of this work and become a Master,
but he who hath abandoned Spiritual Law, and em-
braced Materialism, which is opposed to Spirit
Magic, can never arrive at a state of happiness and
condition of mind to be able to climb to the summit
of this Sacred Art.

Dr. L. W. de Laurence,.

Adept in Art Magic and Famous Magician by
Alchemy and Fire.

CHAPTER I.

SPIRITISM

From the Sanscrit writing of the Hindu new
ideas and new words which are needed, in order
to secure clearness of language by avoiding the
confusioi^ inseparable from the employment of the
same term for expressing different meanings, are
to be secured. The words spiritual, spiritualist,
spiritualism, have a definite acceptation; to give
them a new one, in order to apply them to the doc-
trines set forth by spirits, would be to multiply the
causes of amphibology, already so numerous.
Strictly speaking, Spiritualism is the opposite of
Materialism; every one is a Spiritualist who be-
lieves that there is in him something more than
matter, but it does not follow that he believes in the
existence of spirits, or in their communication with
the visible world. Instead, therefore, of the words
SPIRITUAL, SPIRITUALISM, employed in these writ-
ings to designate this latter belief, the words spir-
itist, SPIRITISM, which, by their form, indicate
their origin and radical meaning, and have thus the
advantage of being perfectly intelligible; and we

38 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

(Ancient Hindu Priests) reserve the words spirit-
ualism, spiritualist, for the expression of the mean-
ing attached to them by common acceptation. We
say, then, that the fundamental principle of the
spiritist theory, or spiritism, is the relation of the
material world with spirits, or the beings of the
invisible world; and we designate the adherents of
the theory as spiritists.

In a special sense, "The Book of Death, Wisdom
and Celestial Fire" contains the doctrine and truth
of spiritism; in a general sense, it appertains to the
spiritualist cult, of which it presents one of the.
phases. It is for this reason that I have inscribed
the words Death and Soul Transition on its title-
page.

There is another word of which it is equally nec-
essary to define the meaning, because it is the key-
stone of every system of Occultism, and also be-
cause, owing to the lack of a precise definition, it
has been made the subject of innumerable contro-
versies; I refer to the word soul. The divergence
of opinion concerning the nature of the soul is
a result of the variety of meanings attached to this
word. A perfect language, in which every idea
had its own special term, would save a vast deal of
discussion; for, in that case, misunderstanding
would be impossible.

Some Western writers define the soul as being

SOUL BEINCABKATIOy. 89

the principle of organic life, having no existence of
its own, and ceasing with the life of the body. Ac-
cording to this purely Materialistic belief, tlie soul
is an effect, and not a cause.

Others consider the soul as being the principle
of intelligence, the universal agent, of which each
being absorbs a portion. According to them, there
is, in the entire universe, only one soul, which dis-
tributes sparks of itself among all intelligent beings
during their life ; each spark, after the death of the
being it has animated, returning to the common
source, and blending again with the general whole,
as brooks and rivers return to the ocean from which
they were produced. This opinion differs from the
preceding one, inasmuch as, according to the latter
hypothesis, there is in us something more than mat-
ter, something that remains in existence after our
DEATH; but, practically, it is much as though
nothing remained of us, since, no longer possessing
individuality, we should retain no consciousness of
our identity. According to this hypothesis, the
universal soul is God, and each being is a portion of
the Divinity. It is a species of Pantheism.

According to others, again, the soul is a moral
being, distinct, independent of matter, and preserv-
ing its individuality after death. This acceptation
of the word soid is certainly the one most generally
received; because, under one name or another, the

80 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

idea of a being that survives the body is found as
an instinctive belief, and independently of all teach-
ing, among all nations, whatever their degree of
civilization. This doctrine, according to which the
soul is a cause, and not an effect, is that of the
Hindus of Sacred Caste.

Without discussing the value of these opinions,
and considering the subject merely under its philo-
logical aspect, we say that these three applications
of the word soul constitute three distinct ideas, each
of which demands a different term. "Soul" has,
therefore, a triple meaning, and is employed by
each school according to the special meaning it
attributes to that word. In order to avoid the con-
fusion naturally resulting from the use of the same
word to express three different ideas, it would be
necessary to confine the word to one of these three
ideas; it would not matter to which, provided the
choice were clearly understood. I think it more
natural to take it in its most common acceptation;
and for this reason I have employed the word soul
to indicate the immaterial and individual being
which resides in us, and survives the body. Evdn
if this being did not really exist, and were only a
product of the imagination, a specific term would
still be needed to designate it.

For want of such a term for each of the other
ideas now loosely understood by the word soul, the

SOUL BEINCARNATION. 31

Hindus employ the term vital principle to designate
the material and organic life which, whatever may
be its source, is common to all living creatures, from
the plant to man. As life can exist without the
thinking faculty, the vital principle is something
distinct from and independent of it. The word
vitality would not express the same idea. Accord-
ing to some, the vital principle is a property of mat*
ter; an effect produced wherever matter is found
under certain given conditions ; while, in the opinion
of the greater number of thinkers, it resides in a
special fluid, universally diffused, and of which each
being absorbs and assimilates a portion during life,
as inert bodies absorb light; the vital principle
being identical with the zHtal Auid, which is gener-
ally regarded as being the same as the animalized
electric fluid, designated also as the magnetic Auid,
the astral Auid, etc.

However this may be, one fact is certain, for it
is proved by observation, viz., that organic beings
possess in themselves a force which, so long as it
exists, produces the phenomena of life; that physi-
cal life is common to all organic beings, and is inde-
pendent of intelligence and thought; tliat intelli-
gence and thought are faculties peculiar to certain
organic species ; and, lastly, that, among the organic
species endowed with intelligence and thought, there
is one which is endowed with a special moral sense

32 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

that gives it an incontestible superiority over the
others, viz., the human species.

It is evident that, being employed according to
various acceptations, the term soul does not exclude
either Materialism or Pantheism. Spiritualists
themselves understand the term soul according to
one or other of the first two definitions, without
denying the distinct immaterial being, to which, in
that case, it would give some other name. This
word, therefore, is not the representative of an
opinion; it is a Protean term, defined by each after
his own fashion, and thus giving rise to intermina-
ble disputes.

I might also avoid confusion, even while em-
ploying the word soul in the three senses defined
above, by adding to it some qualifying term that
should specify the point of view from which we
consider it, or the mode in which we apply it. It
would be, in that case, a generic word, representing
at once the principles of material life, of intelli-
gence, and of the moral faculty, each of which
would be distinguished by an attribute, as is done,
for example, with the word gas, by adding the
words hydrogen, oxygen, etc. Thus we might say
— ^and it would, perhaps, be the best plan to adopt —
vital soul for the principle of material life, intel-
lectual soul for the principle of intelligence, and
spiritual soul for the principle of our individuality

SOUL BEINCAENATION. 88

after death; in which case the zntal soul would be
common to all organic beings, plants, animals, and
men; the intellectual soul would be the peculiar
property of animals and men ; and the spiritual soul
would belong to men only.

I have thought it all the more important to be
explicit in regard to this point, because the spiritist
theory is naturally based on the existence in us of
a being independent of matter, and that survives
the body. As the word soul will frequently recur
in the course of these writings, it was necessary to
define the meaning we attach to it, in order to avoid
all misunderstanding.

We now come to the principal object of this pre-
liminary explanation.

SPIRIT DOCTRINE

Spirit doctrine, like all new theories, has its sup-
porters and its opponents. I shall endeavor to re-
ply to some of the objections of the latter, by ex-
amining the worth of the reasons on which they
are based, without, however, pretending to be able
to convince everybody, but addressing ourselves to
those who, without prejudices or preconceived
ideas, are sincerely and honestly desirous of arriv-
ing at the truth; and we will prove to them that
those objections are the result of a too hasty con-
clusion in regard to facts imperfectly observed.

34 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

Of the facts referred to, the one first observed
was the receiving of correct communications from
Astral Spirits, popularly called "spiritualism." This
phenomenon, which many supposed to be first ob-
served in their particular country (was only re-
newed, for history proves it to have been produced
in the most remote ages of antiquity), was attend-
ed with various strange accompaniments, such as
unusual noises, raps produced without any ostensi-
ble cause, etc. From India this phenomenon spread
rapidly over Europe and the rest of the world. It
was met at first with incredulity; but the spirit
messages were received by so many experimenters
that it soon became impossible to doubt their real-

ity.

If the phenomenon in question had been limited
to the movement of inert objects, it might have
been possible to explain it by some purely physical
cause. The Western men are far from knowing all
the secret agencies of nature, or all the properties
of those which are known to us. Astral forces,
moreover, are not only multiplying, day by day, the
resources they offer to mankind, but appear to be
about to irradiate science with a new light. It
seemed, therefore, by no means impossible that
Astral Forces, modified by certain circumstances, or
some other unknown agent, might be the cause of
these spirit messages and other phenomena. The

SOUL REINCARNATION. 36

fact that the presence of several persons in-
creased the intensity of the action appeared to
strengthen this supposition; for the union of these

might not inaptly be regarded as constituting a
battery, of which the power was in proportion to
the number of its elements.

That the movement of tables should be cir-
cular was in no way surprising, for the circular
movement is of frequent occurrence in nature. All
the stars move in circles; and it, therefore, seemed
to be possible that in the movement of the tables
we had a reflex on a small scale of the movement
of the universe; or that some cause, hitherto un-
known, might produce, accidentally, and, in regard
to small objects, a current analogous to that which
impels the worlds of the universe in their orbits.

But the movement in question was not always
circular. It was often irregular, disorderly; the
object moved was sometimes violently shaken, over-
thrown, carried about in various directions, and, in
contravention of all known laws of statics, lifted
from the ground and held up in the air. Still, in
all this, there was nothing that might not be ex-
plained by the force of some invisible physical
agent. Do we not see electricity overthrow build-
ings, uproot trees, and hurl to considerable dis-
tances the heaviest bodies, attracting or repelling,
as the case may be?

36 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

The rappings and other unusual noises, supposing
them to be due to something else than the dilatation
of the wood, or other accidental cause, might very
well be produced by an accumulation of the mys-
terious fluid; for does not electricity produce the
loudest sounds?

Up to this point- ever3rthing might be considered
as belonging to the domain of physics and physiol-
ogy. Without going beyond this circle of ideas, the
learned might have found in the phenomenon re-
ferred to matter well worthy of serious study. Why
was this not done? It is painful to be obliged to
make the confession, but the neglect of the scientific
world was due to causes that add one more proof
to the many already given of the frivolity of the
Western mind. In the first place, the commonness
of the Hindus who mainly served as the basis of
the earliest exi)erimentations had something to do
with this disdain. What an influence, in regard to
even the most serious matters, is often exerted by a
mere word! Without reflecting that the messages
referred to might be communicated to any person,
the idea of the Hindus became associated with it
in the general mind, doubtless because the Hindu,
being the best developed mentally, and also because
these people can place themselves in a receptive state
more conveniently than any other race of peo-
ple, who interest themsislves in the experiments

ttOUL EEINCAENATION. 87

referred to. But men who pride themselves on
their mental superiority are sometimes so puerile
as to warrant the suspicion that a good many keen
and cultivated minds may have considered it be-
neath them to take any notice of what was com-
monly known as "Hindu Occultism." If the phe-
nomenon observed by Ijuna had been made known
by some Hindu adept, and dubbed with some ab-
surd nickname, it would probably have been con-
signed to the lumber-room, along with the divining-
rod; for where is the scientist who would not in
that case have regarded it as derogatory to occupy
himself with spiritism?

A few men of superior intellect, however, being
modest enough to admit that nature might not
have revealed to them all her Occult secrets, con-
scientiously endeavored to see into the matter for
themselves; but the phenomenon not having al-
ways responded to their attempts, and not being al-
ways produced at their pleasure, and according to
their methods of experimenting, they arrived at
an adverse conclusion in regard to them. The mas-
ters of India, however, despite that conclusion, con-
tinued to develop psychic powers ; and we may say
of them, with Galileo, "Nevertheless, they move!"
We may assert, still further, that the facts alluded
to have been multiplied to such an extent that they
have become naturalized among Western people, so

38 DEATH AND HINDU 8PIEITISM.

that Opinions are now only divided as to their na-
ture.

And here let me ask whether the fact that these
phenomena are not always produced in exactly the
same way, and according to the wishes and require-
ments of each individual obsenrer, can be reason-
ably regarded as constituting an argument against
their reality? Are not the phenomena of electricity
and chemistry subordinated to certain conditions,
and should we be right in denying their reality be-
cause they do not occur when those conditions are
not present? Is it strange, then, that certain con-
ditions should be necessary to the production of
the phenomena of spirit communication by the
Astral Spirits, or that it should not occur when the
observer, placing himself at his own individual
point of view, insists on producing it at his own
pleasure, or in subjecting it to the laws of phe-
nomena already known, without considering that a
new order of facts may, and, indeed, must, result
from the action of laws equally new to us ? Now,
in order to arrive at a knowledge of such laws, it is
necessary to study the circumstances under which
those facts are produced ; and such a study can only
be made through long-sustained and attentive obser-
vation.

"But,'' it is often objected, "there is evident trick-
ery in some of the occurrences referred to." To

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 39

this objection I reply, in the first place, by asking
whether the objectors are quite sure that what they
have taken for trickery may not be simply an order
of facts which they are not yet able to account for,
as was the case with the peasant who mistook the
experiments of a learned professor of physics for
the tricks of a clever conjuror ? But even admitting
that there has been trickery in some cases, is that a
reason for denying the reality of facts? Must we
deny the reality of physics because certain conjurors
give themselves the title of physicists? Moreover,
the character of the persons concerned in these
manifestations should be taken into account, and
the interest they may have in deceiving. Would
they do so by way of a joke? A joke may amuse
for a moment, but a mystification, if kept up too
long, would become as wearisome to the mystifier
as to the mystified. Besides, a mystification carried
on from one end of the earth to the other, and
among the most serious, honorable, and enlightened
people, would be at least as extraordinary as the
phenomena in question.

If the phenomena we are considering had been
limited to the movement of objects, they would
have remained as we have already remarked, within
the domain of physical science; but so far was this
from being the case, that they speedily proved to be
only the forerunners of facts of a character still

40 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

more extraordinary. For it was soon found that
the impulsion communicated to inert objects was
not the mere product of a blind mechanical force,
but that it revealed the action of an intelligent cause,
a discovery that opened up a new field of observa-
tion, and promised a solution of many mysterious
problems. Are these communications and move-
ments due to an intelligent power? Such was the
question first to be answered. If such a power exists,
what is it ? What is its nature ? What its origin ? Is
it superhuman ^ Such were the secondary ques-
tions which naturally grew out of that first one.

EARLIEST MANIFESTATIONS

The earliest manifestations of intelligence were
made by writings of Sanscrit through Hindu me-
diums. Even here, it must be confessed, there
was nothing very convincing for the incredulous, as
these apparent writings might be an effect of chance.
But fuller communications were soon obtained, so
that words and sentences began to be produced in
reply to the questions propounded. The correct-
ness of these replies, their correlation with the ques-
tions asked, excited astonishment. The mysterious
being who gave these replies, when questioned as
to its nature, declared itself to be a "spirit" or
"soul," gave itself a name, and stated various
particulars about itself. This is a circumstance of

SOtJL BEINCABNATION. 41

noteworthy importance, for it proves that no one
suggested the idea of spirits as an explanation of
the phenomenon, but that the phenomenon gave this
explanation of itself. Hypotheses are often framed,
in the positive sciences, to serve as a basis of argu-
ment; but such was not the case in this instance.

The mode of communication furnished by these
spirits formed entire discourses, filHng many
pages, treating of the deepest questions of philos-
ophy, morality, metaphysics, psychology, spiritism,
occultism, etc., and as rapidly as though written by
the hand of a philosopher instead of a common
Hindu medium.

This presented itself simultaneously all over
India and in various other countries.

Do these intelligences reside in the human race,
or are they beyond the pale of humanity? Such is
the next point to be cleared up, and of which the
complete explanation will be found in the present
work, such as it has been given by the spirits them-
selves, to be written in Sanscrit.

Spirit manifestations in India do not occur
mysteriously, but in broad daylight, so that every
one can see them and ascertain their reality; they
are not the privilege of a single individual, but are
obtained by tens of thousands of persons every day
at pleasure. These effects have necessarily a cause;
and as they reveal the action of an intelligence and

42 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

a will, they are evidently beyond the domain of
merely physical effects.

Many theories have been broached in relation to
this subject; these we shall presently examine, and
shall then be able to decide whether they can ac-
count for all the facts now occurring. Let us,
meanwhile, assume the existence of beings distinct
from the Earth Plane, since such is the explana-
tion given of themselves by the intelligences thus
revealed to us, and let us see what they say to us.

The beings who thus enter into communication
with us designate themselves, as I have said, by the
name of spirits or souls, and as having belonged, in
many cases at least, to men who have lived upon the
earth. They say that they constitute the spiritual
world, as we, during our earthly life, constitute the
corporeal world.

I will now briefly sum up the most important
points of Hindu Magic doctrine which they have
transmitted to me, in order to reply more easily to
the objections of the incredulous.

"God is eternal, immutable, immaterial, unique,
all-powerful, sovereignly just and good.

"He has created the universe, which compre-
hends all beings, animate and inanimate, material
and immaterial.

"The material beings constitute the visible or
corporeal world, and the immaterial beings consti-

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 43

tute the invisible or spiritual world, that is to say,
the spirit-world, or world of spirits.

"The spirit-world is the normal, primitive, eter-
nal world, pre-existent to, and surviving, everything
else.

"The corporeal world is only secondary ; it might
cease to exist, or never have existed, without chang-
ing the essentiality of the spiritual world.

"Spirits temporarily assume a perishable material
envelope, the destruction of which, by death, re-
stores them to liberty.

"Among the different species of corporeal be-
ings, God has chosen the human species for the in-
carnation of spirits arrived at a certain degree of
development; it is this which gives it a moral and
intellectual superiority to all the others.

"The soul is an incarnated spirit, whose body is
only its envelope.

"There are in man three things : ( i ) The body,
or material being, analogous to the animals, and
animated by the same vital principle; (2) the soul,
or immaterial being, a spirit incarnated in the body ;
(3) the link which unites the soul and the body, a
principle intermediary between matter and spirit.

"Man has thus two natures : by his body he par-
ticipates in the nature of the animals, of which it
has the instincts ; by his soul, he participates in the
nature of spirits.

CHAPTER II.

THE LINK OR PERISPIRIT

"The link, or perispirit, which unites the body
and the spirit, is a sort of semi-material envelope.
Death is the destruction of the material body, which
is the grossest of man's two envelopes ; but the spirit
preserves his other envelope, viz., the perispirit,
which constitutes for him an ethereal body, invisible
to us in its normal state, but which he can render
occasionally visible, and even tangible, as is the case
in apparitions.

"A spirit, therefore, is not an abstract, undefined
being, only to be conceived of by our thought ; it is
a real, circumscribed being, which, in certain cases,
is appreciable by the senses of sight, hearing and
touch.

"Spirits belong to different classes, and are not
equal to one another either in power, in intelligence,
in knowledge, or in morality. Those of the high-
est orders are distinguished from those below them
by their superior purity and knowledge, their near-
ness to God, and their love of goodness; they are
"angels" or "pure spirits." The other classes are

46 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

more and more distant from this perfection ; those
of the lower ranks are inclined to most of our pas-
sions, hatred, envy, jealousy, pride, etc.; they take
pleasure in evil. Among them are some who are
neither very good nor very bad, but are teazing and
troublesome rather than malicious, are often mis-
chievous and unreasonable, and may be classed as
giddy and foolish spirits.

"Spirits do not belong perpetually to the same
order. All are destined to attain perfection by
passing through the different degrees of the spirit-
hierarchy. This amelioration is effected by incar-
nation, which is imposed on some of them as an
expiation, and on others as a mission. Material
life is a trial which they have to undergo many
times until they have attained to absolute perfec-
tion; it is a sort of filter, or alembic, from which
they issue more or less purified after, each new in-
carnation.

"On quitting the body, the soul re-enters the
world of spirits from which it came, and from which
it will enter upon a new material existence, after a
longer or shorter lapse of time, during which its
state is that of an errant or wandering spirit*

*There is, between this doctrine of reincarnation and that of
metempsychosis, as held by certain sects in India, a characteristic
difference, which is explained in the course of the present work.

SOUL BEINCAENATION. 47

"Spirits having to pass through many incarna-
tions, it follows that we have all had many exist-
ences, and that we shall have others, more or less
perfect, either upon this earth or in other worlds.

"The incarnation of spirits always takes place in
the human race; it would be an error to suppose
that the soul or spirit could be incarnated in the
body of an animal.

"A spirit's successive corporeal existences are al-
ways progressive, and never retrograde; but the
rapidity of our progress depends on the efforts we
make to arrive at perfection.

"The qualities of the soul are those of the spirit
incarnated in us; thus, a good man is the incarna-
tion of a good spirit, and a bad man is that of an
unpurified spirit.

"The soul possessed its own individuality before
its incarnation; it preserves that individuality after
its separation from the body.

"On its re-entrance into the spirit world, the soul
again finds all those whom it has known upon the
earth, and all its former existences eventually come
back to its memory, with the remembrance of all the
good and of all the evil which it has done in them.

"The incarnated spirit is under the influence of
matter; the man who surmounts this influence,
through the elevation and purification of his soul,

48 DEATH AND HINDU 8PIBITISM.

raises himself nearer to the superior spirits, among
whom he will one day be classed. He who allows
himself to be ruled by bad passions, and places all
his delight in the satisfaction of his gross animal
appetites, brings himself nearer to the impure spir-
its, by giving preponderance to his animal nature.

"Incarnated spirits inhabit the different globes of
the universe.

"Spirits who are not incarnated, who are errant,
do not occupy any fixed and circumscribed region;
they are everywhere, in space, and around us, see-
ing us, and mixing with us incessantly; they con-
stitute an invisible population, constantly moving
and busy about us, on every side.

"Spirits exert an incessant action upon the moral
world, and even upon the physical world; they act
both upon matter and upon thought, and consti-
tute one of the powers of nature, the efficient cause
of many classes of phenomena hitherto unexplained
or misinterpreted, and of which only the spiritist
theory can give a rational explanation.

"Spirits are incessantly in relation with men. The
good spirits try to lead us into the right road, sus-
tain us under the trials of life, and aid us to bear
them with courage and resignation; the bad ones
tempt us to evil ; it is a pleasure for them to see us
fall, and to make us like themselves.

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 49

''The communications of spirits with men are
either occult or ostensible. Their occult communi-
cations are made through the good or bad influence
they exert on us without our being aware of it ; it is
our duty to distinguish, by the exercise of our judg-
ment, between the good and the bad inspirations
that are thus brought to bear upon us. Their osten-
sible communications take place by means of writ-
ing, of speech, or of other physical manifestations,
and usually through the intermediary of the me-
diums who serve as their instruments.

"Spirits manifest themselves spontaneously, or
in response to evocation. All spirits may be evoked :
those who have animated the most obscure of mor-
tals, as well as those of the most illustrious per-
sonages, and whatever the epoch at which they
lived; those of our relatives, our friends, or our
enemies; and we may obtain from them, by written
or by verbal communications, counsels, information
in regard to their situation beyond the grave, their
thoughts in regard to us, and whatever revelations
they are permitted to make to us.

"Spirits are attracted by .their S3rmpathy with the
moral quality of the parties by whom they are
evdced. Spirits of superior elevation take pleasure
in meetings of a serious character, animated by the
love of goodness and the sincere desire of instruc-
tion and improvement Their presence repels the

50 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

spirits of inferior degree, who find, on the con-
trary, free access and freedom of action among per-
sons of frivolous disposition, or brought together
by mere curiosity, and wherever evil instincts are
to be met with. So far from obtaining from spirits,
under such circumstances, either good advice or
useful information, nothing is to be expected from
them but trifling, lies, ill-natured tricks, or hum-
bugging; for they often borrow the most venerated
names, in order the better to impose upon those with
whom they are in communication.

THE LANGUAGE OF SPIRITS

"It is easy to distinguish between good and bad
spirits. The language of spirits of superior eleva-
tion is constantly dignified, noble, characterized by
the highest morality, free from every trace of earth-
ly passion; their counsels breathe the purest wis-
dom, and always have our improvement and the
good of mankind for their aim. The communica-
tions of spirits of lower degree, on the contrary,
are full of discrepancies, and their language is often
commonplace, and even coarse. If they sometimes
say things that are good and true, they more often
make false and absurd statements, prompted by
Ignorance or malice. They play upon the credulity
of those who interrogate them, amusing themselves
by flattering their vanity, and fooling them with

SOUL BEINGABNATION. 81

false hopes. In a word, instructive communications
worthy of the name are only to be obtained in cen-
ters of a serious character, whose members are
united, by an intimate communion of thought and
desire, in the pursuit of truth and goodness.

'The moral teaching of the higher spirits may be
summed up, like that of Christ, in the gospel maxim,
'Do unto others as jrou would that others should
do unto you;' that is to say, do good to all, and
wrong to none. This principle of action furnishes
mankind with a rule of conduct of universal appli-
cation,' from the smallest matters to the greatest.

'They teach us that selfishness, pride, sensuality,
are passions which bring us back towards the ani-
mal nature, by attaching us to matter ; that he who,
in this lower life, detaches himself from matter
through contempt of worldly trifles, and through
love of the neighbor, brings himself back towards
the spiritual nature; that we should all make our-
selves useful, according to the means which God
has placed in our hands for our trial ; that the strong
and the powerful owe aid and protection to the
weak ; and that he who misuses strength and power
to oppress his fellow creature violates the law of
God. They teach us that in the spirit world nothing
can be hidden, and that the h)rpocrite will there be
unmasked, and all his wickedness unveiled ; that the
presence, unavoidable and perpetual, of those whom

52 DEATH AND HINDU SPIMTISM.

we have wronged in the earthly life is one of the
punishments that await us in the spirit world; and
that the lower or higher state of spirits gives rise in
that other life to sufferings or to enjoyments un-
known to us upon the earth.

"But they also teach us that there are no unpar-
donable sins, none that cannot be effaced by expia-
tion. Man finds the means of accomplishing this
in the different existences which permit him to ad-
vance progressively, and according to his desire
and his efforts, towards the perfection that consti-
tutes his ultimate aim.**

Such is the sum of spiritist doctrine, as contained
in the teachings given by spirits of high degree.
Let us now consider the objections that are urged
against it.

Many persons regard the opposition of the learned
world as constituting, if not a proof, at least a very
strong presumption, of the falsity of spiritism. The
Hindu Priests are not of those who affect indif-
ference in regard to the judgment of scientific men ;
on the contrary, we hold them in great esteem, and
should think it an honor to be of their number, but
we cannot consider their opinion as being, under all
circumstances, necessarily and absolutely conclusive.

When the votaries of science go beyond the bare
observation of facts, when they attempt to appraise
and to explain those facts, they enter upon the field

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 03

of conjecture; each advances a system of his own,
which he does his utmost to bring into favor, and
defends with might and main. Do we not see every
day the most divergent systems brought forward
and rejected, one after the other; now cried down
as absurd errors, and now cried up as incontestable
truths? Facts are the sole criterion of reality, the
sole argument that admits of no reply: in the ab-
sence of facts, the wise man suspends his judgment.
In regard to all matters that have already been
fully examined, the verdict of the learned is justly
held to be authoritative, because their knowledge of
them is fuller and more enlightened than that of
ordinary men ; but in regard to occult facts or prin-
ciples, to matters imperfectly known, their opinion
can only be hypothetic, because they are no more
exempt from prejudice than other people. It may
even be said that scientific men are more apt to be
prejudiced than the rest of the world, because each
of them is naturally inclined to look at everything
from the special point of view that has been adopted
by him ; the mathematician admitting no other order
of proof than that of an algebraic demonstration,
the chemist referring everything to the action of
the elements, etc. When a man has made for
himself a specialty, he usually devotes his whole
mind to it ; beyond the scope of this specialty he often
reasons falsely, because, owing to the weakness of

54 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

human reason, he insists on treating every subject
in the same way; and, therefore, while we should
willingly and confidently consult a chemist in re-
gard to a question of analysis, a physicist in regard
to electricity, a mechanician in regard to a motive
power, we must be allowed, without in any way
derogating from the respect due to their special
knowledge, to attach no more weight to their unfa-
vorable opinion of spiritism than we should do to
the judgment of an architect on a question relating
to the theory of music.

56 DEATH AND HINDU SFIBITISM.

MYSTIC INDIA.

Oh Mystic India; with many centuries span

Of wondrous growth, dmost Utopian

Pulsating center of Astral Force,

Whose Spirit Art to Man impart

The Treasures this Power alone Provides.

Whose Masters give hack enriching tides

Of life and Spiritual progress,

For thy Occult Knowledge,

All ages and Nations come to thee.

The Prophet and Seer of which

The Western Mind has dreamed

Has, in thy Mystic Beauty

Been realised and made to reach

Their culmination^

— Dr. de Laurence.

CHAPTER III.

HINDU SPIRITISM

The positive sciences are based on. the properties
of matter, which may be experimented upon and
manipulated at pleasure; but spiritist phenomena are
an eiffect of the action of astral spirits who have
wills of their own, and who constantly show us that
they are not subjected to ours. The observation of
facts, therefore, cannot be carried on in the latter
case in the same way as in the former one, for they
proceed from another source, and require special
conditions; and, consequently, to insist upon sub-
mitting them to the same methods of investigation
is to insist on assuming the existence of analogies
that do not exist. Science, properly so called, is,
therefore, inc(Mnpetent, as such, to decide the ques-
tion of the truth of spiritism : it has nothing to do
with it; and its verdict in regard to it, whether fa-
vorable or otherwise, is of no weight. Spiritist be-
lief is the result of a personal conviction that scien-
tific men may hold as individuals, and independent
of their quality as scientists; but to submit the
question to the decision of physical science would be

68 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM,

much the same thing as to set a company of
physicists and astronomers to decide the question
of immortality. Hindu spiritism deals exclusively
with the existence of the soul, and its state after
death; and it is supremely tmreasonable to assume
that a man must be a great psychologist simply be-
cause he is a great mathematician or a great anato-
mist The anatomist, when dissecting a human
body, looks for the soul, and, as he docs not find it
under his scalpel as he finds a nerve, or see it evapo-
rate as does a gas, he concludes that it does not
exist, because he reasons from an exclusively mate-
rial point of view; but it by no means follows that
he is right, and that the opinion of the rest of the
world is wrong. We see, therefore, that the task of
deciding as to the truth or falsity of spiritism does
not fall within the scope of physical science. When
spiritist beliefs shall have become generalized, when
they shall have been accepted by the masses (and, if
I may judge by the rapidity with which they arc
being propagated, that time can hardly be very dis-
tant), it will be with those beliefs as with all new
ideas that have encountered opposition; and scien-
tific men will end by yielding to the force of evi-
dence. They will be brought, individually, by the
force of things, to admit ideas that they now reject ;
and, until then, it would be premature to turn them
from their special studies in order to occupy them

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 59

with a matter which is foreign alike to their habits
of thought and to their spheres of investigation.
Meanwhile, those who, without a careful prepara-
tory study of the matter, pronounce a negative ver-
dict in regard to it, and throw ridicule upon all who
are not of their way of thinking, forget that such
has been done in regard to nearly all the great dis-
coveries that honor the human race.

The erroneous judgments of learned men in re-
gard to certain discoveries, though regrettable for
the honor of their memory, do not invalidate the
title to our esteem acquired by them in regard to
other matters. But is common sense only to be
found associated with an official diploma, and are
there only fools and simpleton's outside the walls of
scientific institutions? Let our opponents conde-
scend to glance over the ranks of the partisans of
spiritism in the temples of India and see whether
they contain only persons of inferior understand-
ings, or whether, on the contrary, considering the
immense number of men of worth by whom it has
been embraced, it can be regarded as belonging to
the category of old wives' fables; whether, in fact,
the character and scientific knowledge of its ad-
herents do not rather deserve that it should be said :
''When such men affirm a matter, there must at
least be something in it?"

I repeat that, if the facts we are about to consider

eO DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

had been limited to the mechanical movement of
inert bodies^ physical science would have been com-
petent to seek out the physical cause of the phe-
nomena; but the manifestations in question being
professedly beyond the action of laws or forces yet
known to men, they are necessarily beyond the com-
petence of human science. When the facts to be
observed are novel, and do not fall within the scope
of any known science, the scientist, in order to study
them, should throw his science temporarily aside,
remembering that a new study cannot be fruitfully
prosecuted under the influence of preconceived
ideas.

He who believes his reason to be infallible is very
near to error. Even those whose ideas are of the
falsest profess to base them on reason ; and it is in
the name of reason that they reject whatever seems
to them to be impossible. They who formerly re-
jected the admirable discoveries that are the glory
of the human mind did so in the name of reason;
for what men call reason is often only pride dis-
guised, and whoever regards himself as infallible
virtually claims to be God's equal. I, therefore, ad-
dress myself to those who are reasonable enough to
suspend their judgment in regard to what they have
not yet seen, and who, judging of the future by the
past, do not believe that man has reached his apogee,

SOUL BEINCAENATION. 61

or that nature has turned over for him the last leaf
of her book.

Let me add that the study of such a theory as that
of spiritism and magic, which introduces me at
once to an order of phenomena so novel and so
grand, can only be fruitfully pursued by persons of
a serious turn of mind, persevering, free from
prejudice, and animated by a firm and sincere de-
termination to arrive at the truth. We could not
give this qualification to those who decide, in re-
gard to such a subject, d priori, lightly, and with-
out thorough examination; who bring to the work
of study neither the method, the regularity, nor the
sustained attention necessary to success: still less
could we give it to those who, not to lose their repu-
tation for wit and sharpness, seek to turn into ridi-
cule matters of the most serious import, or that are
judged to be such by persons whose knowledge,
character, and convictions should command respect.
Let those who consider the facts in question as un-
worthy of their attention abstain from studying
these writings; no one would attempt to interfere
with their belief ; but let them, on their part, respect
the belief of those who are of a contrary opinion.

The characteristics of serious study are the
method and the perseverance with which it is car-
ried on. Is it strange that sensible answers are not
always obtained from spirits in reply to questions

62 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

which, however serious in themselves, are pro-
pounded at random, and in the midst of a host of
others, unconnected, frivolous, or foolish? Besides,
a question is often complex, and the answer to it,
in order to be clear, needs to be preceded, or com-
pleted, by various considerations. Whoever would
acquire any science must make it the object of
methodical study, must begin at the beginning, and
follow out the sequence and development of the ideas
involved in it. If one who is ignorant of the most
elementary facts of a science should ask a question
in regard to it of the most learned of its professors,
could the professor, however excellent his learning,
give him any satisfactory answer ? For any isolated
answer, given under such conditions, must neces-
sarily be incomplete, and would, therefore, in many
cases, appear unintelligible, or even absurd. It is
exactly the same in regard to the relations which
we establish with spirits. If we would learn in their
school, we must go through a complete course of
teaching with them; but, as among ourselves, we
must select our teachers, and work on with steadi-
ness and assiduity.

I have said that spirits of superior advancement
are only attracted to centers in which there reigns a
serious desire for light, and, above all, a perfect
communion of thought and feeling in the pursuit of
moral excellence. Frivolity and idle curiosity repel

SOUL BEINCAENATION. 68

them, just as, among men, they repel all reasonable
people ; and the road is thus left open to the mob of
foolish and lying spirits who are always about us,
watching for opportunities of mocking us and
amusing themselves at our expense. What becomes
of any serious question in such a gathering? It
will certainly be replied to, but by whom? It is
just as though, in the midst of a convivial dinner-
party, you should suddenly propound such questions
as "What is the soul? What is death?" or others
equally out of harmony with the tone of the comr
pany. If we would obtain serious answers, we must
ourselves be serious, and must place ourselves in
the conditions required for obtaining them; it is
only by so doing that we shall obtain any satisfac-
tory and ennobling communications. We must,
moreover, be laborious and persevering in our in-
vestigations, otherwise the higher spirits will cease
to trouble themselves about us, as the professor
ceases to occupy himself with the hopelessly idle
members of his class.

The movement of inert bodies and spirit com-
munication is a fact already proved by experience;
the point now to be ascertained is, whether there is,
or is not, a manifestation of intelligence in this
movement separate from the medium, and, if there
is, what is the source of this intelligence? We are
not speaking of the intelligence displayed in the

64 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

movement of certain objects, nor of verbal com-
munications, nor even of those which are written
directly by the medium: these manifestations, of
which the spirit-origin is evident for those who
have thoroughly investigated the matter, are not,
at first sight, sufficiently independent of the will of
the medium to bring conviction to an observer new
to the subject. We will, therefore, only speak, in
this place, of writing obtained without the aid of an
object of any kind provided with a pencil, such as
a small basket, a planchette, etc., the fingers of the
medium being placed upon the object in such a man-
ner as to defy the most consummate skill to exercise
the slightest influence on the tracing of the letters.
But let us suppose that, by some wonderful clever-
ness, the medium succeeds in deceiving the most
keenly observant eye, how can we explain the na-
ture of the communications, when they are alto-
gether beyond the scope of the medium's knowledge
and ideas? In the temples of India an adept will
have many pages of Occult teachings, dashed off, as
frequently happens, with the most astonishing
rapidity, sometimes spontaneously, and sometimes
upon a given subject; of poems of elevated char-
acter, and irreproachable in point of style, produced
by the hand of an Adept or Master. And what
adds to the strangeness of these facts is, that
they are occurring all over India, and that the num-

SOUL BEINOABNATION. 65

ber of meditims is constantly increasing. Are these
facts real or not ? To this query I have but one re-
ply to make: "See and observe; opportunities of
doing so will not be lacking; but, above all, observe
often, for a long time, and according to the condi-
tions required for so doing."

To the evidence adduced by us, what do our an-
tagonists reply ? "You are," say they, "the dupes of
imposition or the sport of illusion." We have to
remark, in the first place, that imposition is not
likely to occur where no profit is to be made ; charla-
tans are not apt to ply their trade gratis. If impo-
sition be practiced, it must be for the sake of a joke.
But by what strange coincidence does there happen
to be an understanding between the jokers, from
one end of the earth to the other, to act in the same
way, to produce the same effects, and to give, upon
the same subjects, and in different languages, re-
plies that are identical, if not in words, at least in
meaning? How is it that grave, serious, honorable,
and educated masters can lend themselves to such
maneuvers, and for what purpose? How is it that
the requisite patience and skill for carrying on such
a piece of deception are found even in young chil-
dren? For mediums, if they are not passive instru-
ments, must possess a degree of skill, and an amount
and variety of knowledge, incompatible with the age
and social position of many of them.

66 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

"But," urge our opponents, "if there be no trick-
ery, both parties may be the dupes of an illusion."
It is only reasonable that the quality of witnesses
should be regarded as an element in deciding the
value of their evidence; and it may fairly be asked
whether the spiritist theory, whose adherents are
already to be counted by millions, recruits these only
among the ignorant? The phenomena on which it
is based is not so extraordinary that we need ad-
mit any reasonableness of doubt in regard to them;
again what is not admissible is the pretension of
certain Western skeptics to a monopoly of common
sense, and the unceremonious way in which, regard-
less of the moral worth of their adversaries, they tax
all who are not of their opinion with infatuation or
stupidity. For the affirmation of enlightened Adepts
and priests in India and other persons who have, for
a long time, seen, studied, and meditated any matter,
is always, if not a proof, at least a presumption in
its favor, since it has been able to fix the attention
of men of mark, having no interest in propagating
an error, nor time to waste upon worthless trifles.

Among the objections brought forward by West-
ern opponents are some which are more specious, at
least in appearance, because they are made by
thoughtful minds.

One of these objections is prompted by the fact
that the language of spirits does not always seem

SOUL EEINCARNATION. 67

worthy of the elevation Adepts attribute to beings
beyond the pale of humanity. But, if the objector
will take the trouble to look at the doctrinal sum-
mary we have given above, he will see that the spir-
its themselves inform us that they are not equals,
either in knowledge or in moral qualities; that we
are not to accept everything said by spirits as literal
truth, and that we must judge for ourselves of the
value of their statements. Assuredly, those who
infer from this fact that we have to deal only with
maleficent beings, whose sole occupation is to de-
ceive us, have no acquaintance with the communica-
tions obtained in certain parts of India habitually
frequented by spirits of superior advancement, or
they could not entertain such an opinion. It is re-
grettable that they should have chanced to see only
the worst side of the spirit-world, for I will not
suppose that their S3rmpathies attract evil, gross, or
lying spirits, rather than good ones. I will merely
suggest that, in some cases, the inquirers may not
be so thoroughly principled in goodness as to repel
evil, and that, taking advantage of their curiosity in
regard to them, imperfect spirits make use of the
opening thus afforded to come about them, while
those of a higher order withdraw from them.

To judge the question of spirits by these facts
would be as little reasonable as to judge of the
character of a people by the sayings and doings of a

68 DEATH AND HINDU 8P1EITISM.

party of wild or disreputable fellows, with whom
the educated and respectable classes of the popula-
tion have nothing to do. Such persons are in the
position of the traveler who, entering some great
capital by one of its worst suburbs, should judge of
all its inhabitants by the habits and language of this
low quarter. In the world of spirits, as in our own,
there are higher and lower castes of society. Let
inquirers make a study of what goes on among spir-
its of high dej^ree, and they will be convinced that
the Astral World is not peopled solely by ignorant
and vicious spirits. "But,'* it will be asked, "do spirits
of high degree come among us?" To which ques-
tion we reply, "Do not remain in the suburbs ; see,
observe, and judge; the facts are within reach of all
but those alluded to by Jesus, as having eyes, but
seeing not, and ears, but hearing not."

A variety of the same objection consists in at-
tributing all spirit communications, and all the phys-
ical manifestations by which they are accompanied,
to the intervention of some diabolical power — ^some
new Proteus that assumes every form in order the
more effectually to deceive us. Without pausing to
analyze a supposition that we regard as not sus-
ceptible of serious examination, and that is, more-
over, refuted by what has already been said, I have
only to remark that, if such were the case, it would
have to be admitted either that the devil is some-

SOUL BEINCAENATION. 69

. times very wise, very reasonable, and, above all,
moral, or else that there are good devils as well as
bad ones.

'spirit manifestations

But, in fact, is it possible to believe that God
would permit only the Spirit of Evil to manifest
himself, and this in order to ruin us, without giving
us also the counsels of good spirits as a counter-
poise? To suppose that He cannot do this is to
limit His power ; to suppose that He can do it, but
abstains from doing it, is incompatible with the be-
lief in His goodness. Both suppositions are equally
blasphemous. It must be observed that, to admit
the communication of evil spirits is to recognize the
existence of spirit manifestations ; but, if they exist,
it can only be with the permission of God, and how
then can we, without impiety, believe that He would
permit them to occur only for a bad purpose, to the
exclusion of a good one? Such a supposition is
contrary alike to the simplest dictates of occult
teachings and of common sense.

One strange feature of the matter, urge other
objectors, is the fact that only the spirits of well-
known personages manifest themselves, and it is
asked why these should be the only ones who do so ?
This query is suggested by an error due, like many
others, to superficial observation. Among the spir-^

70 DEATH AND HINDU 8PIBITISM.

■

its who present themselves spontaneously, the
greater number are unknown to us, and, therefore,
call themselves by names that we know, and that
serve to characterize them. With regai:d to those
whom we evoke, unless in the case of relatives or
friends, we naturally address ourselves to spirits
whom we know of, rather than to those who are un-
known to us; and as the names of illustrious per-
sons are those which strike us most forcibly, they
are, for that reason, those which are most re-
marked.

It is also considered as strange that the spirits of
eminent men should respond familiarly to our call,
and should sometimes interest themselves in things
that appear trifling in comparison with those which
they accomplished during their life. But there is in
this nothing surprising for those who know that
the power and consideration which a man may have
possessed in this lower life give him no supremacy
in the spirit-world. Spirits confirm the gospel state-
ment that ''the last shall be first, and the first shall
be last/' as regards the rank of each of us when we
return among them. Thus he who has been first in
the earthly life may be one of the last in the spirit-
world; he before whom all bowed their heads dur-
ing the present life may then find himself beneath
the humblest artisan, for, on quitting the earthly
life, he leaves all his grandeur behind him; and the

SOUL BEINCABNATION. .71

most powerful monarch may be lower than the low-
est of his subjects.

A fact ascertained by observation, and confirmed
by the spirits themselves, is the borrowing of well-
known and venerated names by spirits of inferior
degree. This causes doubt to exist among many
fervent adherents of spiritist doctrine, who admit
the reality of the intervention and manifestation of
spirits, and they ask themselves what certainty we
can have of their identity? This certainty it is, in
fact, very difficult to obtain; but though it cannot
be settled as authentically as by the attestation of a
civil register, it may, at least, be established pre-
sumptively, according to certain indications.

When the spirit who manifests himself is that of
some one personally known to us, of a relative or
friend, for instance, and especially if of one who
has been dead but a short time, it is generally found
that his language is perfectly in keeping with what
we know of his character; thus furnishing a strong
presumption of his identity, which is placed almost
beyond reach of doubt when the spirit speaks of
private affairs, and refers to family matters known
only to the party to whom he addresses himself. A
son could hardly be mistaken as to the language of
his father and mother, nor parents as to that of their
child. Most striking incidents often occur in evoca-
tions of this intimate kind — ^things of a nature to

72 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

convince the most incredulous. The most skeptical
are often astounded by the unexpected revelations
thus made to them.

Ahother very characteristic circumstance often
helps to establish a spirit's identity. I have already
said that the handwriting of the medium generally
changes with the spirit evoked, the same writing
being reproduced exactly every time the same spirit
presents himself; and it often happens that, in the
case of persons recently deceased, this writing bears
a striking resemblance to that of the person during
life, the signatures, especially, being sometimes per-
fectly exact. We are, nevertheless, very far from
adducing this fact as a rule, or as being of constant
recurrence ; we merely mention it as a point worthy
of notice.

It is only when spirits have arrived at a certain
degree of purification that they are entirely freed
from all corporeal influences; and as long as they
are not completely dematerialized (to employ their
own expression) tliey retain most of the ideas, ten-
dencies, and even the hobbies, they had while on
earth, all of which furnish additional means of
identification; but these are especially to be found
in the Vast number of small details that are only
perceived through sustained and attentive observa-
tion. Spirits who have been authors are seen to
discuss their own works or^ views, approving or

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 73

blaming them; others allude to various circum-
stances connected with their life or death ; and from
all these indications we obtain what may, at least,
be regarded as moral presumptions in favor of their
identity, the only ones that can be looked for under
the circumstances of the case.

THE IDENTITY OF THE SPIRIT EVOKED

If, then, the identity of the spirit evoked may be
established, to a certain extent and in certain cases,
there is no reason why that identity may not exist
in others; and although we may not have the same
means of identification in regard to persons whose
death is of more distant date, you always have that
of language and character, for the spirit of a good
and enlightened man will assuredly not express him-
self like "that of a depraved or ignorant one. As
for inferior spirits who assume honored names, they
soon betray themselves by the character of their
language and statements. If some one, for instance,
calling himself so and so gave utterance to remarks
at variance with common sense or morality, his
imposture would at once become evident ; but if the
thoughts expressed by him were always noble, con-
sistent, and of an elevation worthy of the soul he
claims to be, there would be no reason to doubt his
identity, for otherwise we should have to admit that
a spirit whose communications inculcate only good-

74 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

ncss would knowingly be guilty of falsehood. Ex-
perience shows us that spirits of the same degree,
of the same character, and animated' by the same
sentiments, are united in groups and families; but
the number of spirits is incalculable, and we are so
far from knowing them all, that the names of the
immense majority of them are necessarily unknown
to us. A spirit of the same category as Buzuj (a
Hindu now in spirit land) may, therefore, come to
us in his name, and may even be sent by him as his
representative; in which case he would naturally
announce himself as Buzuj, because he is his equiva-
lent, and able to supply his place, and because we
need a name in order to fix our ideas in regard to
him. And, after all, what does it matter whether
a spirit be really Buzuj or not, if all that he says is
excellent, and such as Buzuj himself would be likely
to say? For, in that case, he must be a spirit of
superior advancement; and the name under which
he presents himself is of no importance, being often
only a means of fixing our ideas. This sort of
substitution would not be acceptable in evocations
of a more intimate character; but, in these, as just
pointed out, I have other means of ascertaining the
identity of the communicating spirit.

It is certain, however, that the assumption of false
names by spirits may give rise to numerous mis-
takes, may be a source of error and deception, and

SOUL REINCABNATION. 75

is, in fact, one of the most serious difficulties of
practical spiritism; but I have never said that this
field of investigation, any more than any other, is
exempt from obstacles, nor that it can be fruitfully
explored without serious and persevering effort. I
cannot too often reiterate the warning that spiritism
is a new field of study' for the Western man, and
one that demands long and assiduous exploration.
Being unable to produce at pleasure the facts on
which spiritism is based, you are obliged to wait for
them to present themselves; and it often happens
that, instead of occurring when you are looking for
them, they occur when least expected. For the at-
tentive and patient observer, materials for study are
abundant, because he discovers in the facts thus pre-
sented thousands of characteristic peculiarities
which are for him so many sources of light. It is
the same in regard to every other branch of science ;
while the superficial observer sees in a flower only
an elegant form, the botanist discovers in it a mine
of interest for his thought.

The foregoing remarks lead me to say a few
words in relation to another difficulty — viz., the di-
vergence which exists in the statements made by
spirits.

Spirits differing very widely fr6m one another as
regards their knowledge and morality, it is evident
that the same question may receive from them very

76 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

different answer^, according to the rank at which
they have arrived ; exactly as would be the case if it
were propounded alternately to a man of science, an
ignoramus, and a mischievous wag. The impor-
tant point, as previously remarked, is to know who
is the spirit to whom you are addressing your ques-
tions.

But, it will be argued, how is it that spirits who
are admittedly of superior degree are not all of the
same opinion ? I reply, in the first place, that there
are, independently of the cause of diversity just
pointed out, other causes that may exercise an in-
fluence on the. nature of the replies, irrespectively
of the quality of the spirits themselves. This is a
point of the highest importance, and one that will
be explained by your ulterior study of the subject,
provided that this study be prosecuted with the aid
of the sustained attention, the prolonged observa-
tion, the method and perseverance that are required
in the pursuit of every other branch of human in-
quiry. Years of study are needed to make even a
second-rate physician; three-quarters of a lifetime
to make a man of learning: and people fancy that
a few hours will suffice to acquire the science of
Occultism! Let there be no mistake in regard to
this matter. The subject of spiritism is immense.
It involves all other subjects, physical, metaphysical,
and social ; it is a new world that opens before you.

SOUL BEINCABNATION 77

Is it Strange that time, and a good deal of time,
should l>e required for becoming acquainted with it ?
The contradictions alluded to, moreover, are not
always as absolute as they may seem to be at first
sight. Do we not see every day that men who are
pursuing the same science give various definitions of
the same thing; sometimes because they make use
of different terms, sometimes because they consider
it from different points of view, although the fun-
damental idea is the same in each case? Let any
one count up, if he can, the different definitions that
have been given of grammar! It must also be re-
membered that the form of the answer often de-
pends on the form under which the question has
been put; and that it would be childish to regard as
a contradiction what is often only a difference of
words. The higher spirits pay no heed to forms of
expression; for them, the thought itself is every-
thing.

DEFINITION OF SOUL

Let us take, for example, the definition of soul.
That word, having no fixed meaning, spirits like
ourselves may differ in the meaning they give to it.
One of them may say that it is "the principle of
life;" another may call it "the animic spark;" a
third may say that it is internal ; a fourth, that it is
external, etc. ; and each may be right from his own

78 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

special point of view. Some of them might even be
supposed to hold materialistic views ; and yet such is
not the case. It is the same with regard to the
word God. According to some, God is "the prin-
ciple of all things ;" according to others, "the crea-
tor of the universe," "the sovereign intelligence,"
"the Infinite," "the great Spirit," etc.; and never-
theless it is always "Gkxi." And so in regard to the
classification of spirits. They form an iminter-
rupted succession from the lowest to the highest ;
all attempts at classification are, therefore, arbi-
trary, and they may be regarded as forming three,
five, ten, or twenty classes, without involving error
or contradiction. All human sciences offer the same
variations of detail ; every investigator has his own
system ; and systems change, but science remains the
same. Whether we study botany according to one
system or another, what we learn is none the less
botany. Let us then cease to attribute more im-
portance than they deserve to matters that are
merely conventional, and let us devote ourselves
only to what is really important ; and we shall often
discover, on reflection, a similitude of meaning in
statements that appeared to us, at first sight, to be
contradictory, especially in occult things.

I should pass over the objection of certain West-
em skeptics in relation to the faulty spelling of some
spirits, were it not that this objection affords me

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 79

an opportunity of calling attention to a point of
great importance. Spirit-orthography, it must be
confessed, is not always irreproachable ; but he must
be very short of arguments who would make this
fact the object of serious criticism, on the plea that,
"since spirits know everything, they ought to be
well up in spelling." I might retort by pointing to
the numerous sins against orthography committed
by more than one of the lights of science in your
own world, and which in no wise invalidate their
scientific authority; but a much more imjwrtant
point is involved in the fact alluded to. For spirits,
and especially for those of high degree, the idea is
everything, the form is nothing. Freed from mat-
ter, their language among themselves is as rapid as
thought, for it is their thought itself that is com-
municated without intermediary; and it must, there-
fore, be very inconvenient for them to be obliged, in
communicating with us, to make use of human
speech, with its long and awkward forms, its insuf-
ficiencies and imperfections, as the vehicle of their
ideas. They often allude to this inconvenience ; and
it is curious to see the means they employ to obviate
the difficulty. It would be the same with you if
you had to express yourselves in a language of
which the words and locutions were longer, and the
stock of expressions more scanty, than those you
habitually employ. The same difficulty is felt by

80 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

the man of genius, impatient of the slowness of his
pen, which always lags behind his thought. It is,
therefore, easy to understand that spirits attach but
little iniportance to questions of spelling, especially
in the transmission of serious and weighty teach-
ings. Should you not rather wonder that they are
able to express themselves equally in all tongues
and that they understand them all? It must not,
however, be inferred from these remarks that they
are unable to express themselves with conventional
correctness ; they do this when they judge it to be
necessary ; as, for instance, when they dictate verses,
some of which, written, moreover, by illiterate me-
diums, are of a correctness and elegance that defy
the severest criticism.

82 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

''SPIRITUAL fountain:'

Oh, Eternal Spiritual Truth: permit this Volume

In justice and honor thy great cause to plead;

For in thee dwells the sum of human hope;

And faithful seeking in the mists of Ages,

Thine Ancient strides, worthily engages

The Faithful Disciple, who follows but thy lead.

Desiring of the future Clairvoyantly to read,

And understand whatever the time presages

The voice of the Adepts, in no tones uncertain.

Says Life shall triumph over Death,

While every century still higher lifts the curtain.

And light is dawning, as their forces fulfill;

The Spiritual fountain from India Flowing,

On every nation its rich Occult gifts bestowing.

Dr. de Laurence.

.ii ii.^

CHAPTER IV.

INSANITY

There are persons who see danger in cver3rthing
that is new to them, and who have, therefore, not
failed to draw an unfavorable conclusion from the
fact that some of those who have taken up the sub-
ject of spiritism have lost their reason. But how
can sensible people urge that fact as an objection?
Does not the same thing often happen to weak heads
when they give themselves up to any intellectual
pursuit? Who shall say how many have gone mad
over mathematics, medicine, music, philosophy,
etc.? But what does that prove? And are those
studies to be proscribed on that account ? Arms and
legs, the instruments of physical activity, are often
injured by physical labor; the brain, instrument of
thought, is often impaired by intellectual labor, to
which, in fact, many a man may be said to fall a
mart)rr. But, though the instrument may be in-
jured, the mind remains intact, and, when freed
from matter, finds itself again in full possession of
its faculties.

Intense mental application of any kind may in-

84 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

ducc cerebral disease; science, art, religion even,
have all furnished their quota of madmen. The pre-
disposing cause of madness is to be found in some
tendency of the brain that renders it more or less
accessible to certain impressions; and, where the
predisposition to insanity exists, its manifestation
takes on the character of the pursuit to which the
mind is most addicted, and which then assumes the
form of a fixed idea. This fixed idea may be that
of spirits, in the case of those who have been deeply
absorbed by spiritist matters; as it may be that of
God, of angels, the devil, fortune, power, an art, a
science, a political or social system. It is probable
that the victim of religious mania would have gone
mad on spiritism, if spiritism had been his predomi-
nant mental occupation; just as he who goes mad
over spiritism would, under other circumstances,
have gone mad over something else.

I assert, therefore, that spiritism does not predis-
pose to insanity; nay, more, I assert that, when cor-
rectly understood, it is a preservative against in-
sanity.

Among the most common causes of cerebral dis-
turbance must be reckoned the disappointments, mis-
fortunes, blighted affections, and other troubles of
human life, which are also the most frequent causes
of suicide. But the enlightened Occultist and Adept
looks upon the things of this life from so elevated a

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 85

point of view, they seem to him so petty, so worth-
less, in comparison with the future he sees before
hin>— life appears so short, so fleeting — that its
tribulations are, in his eyes, merely the disagreeable
incidents of a journey. What would produce vio-
lent emotion in the mind of another affects him but
slightly; besides, he knows that the sorrows of life
are trials which aid our advancement, if borne with-
out murmuring, and that he will be rewarded ac-
cording to the fortitude with which he has borne
them. His convictions, therefore, give him a resig-
kiation that preserves him from despair, and conse-
quently from a frequent cause of madness and sui-
cide. He knows, moreover, through spirit com-
munications, the fate of those who voluntarily
shorten their days; and as such knowledge is well
calculated to suggest serious reflection, the num-
ber of those who have thus been arrested on the
downward path is incalculable. Such is one of the
results of Occultism. The incredulous may smile
at it as much as they please ; I only wish them the
consolations it affords to those Adepts who have
sounded its mysterious depths.

DREAD OF THE DEVIL

Fear must also be reckoned among the causes of
madness. Dread of the devil has deranged many a
brain; and who shall say how many victims have

86 DEATH AND HNDU SPIRITISM.

been made by impressing weak imaginations with
pictures of which the horrors are enhanced by the
hideous details so ingeniously worked into them?
The devil, it is sometimes said, frightens only little
children, whom it helps to make docile and well-
behaved. Yes; but only as do nursery-terrors and
bugaboos in general ; and when these have lost their
power, they who have been subjected to this sort of
training are apt to be worse than before; while, on
the other hand, those who have recourse to it over-
look the risk of epilepsy involved in such disturbing
action upon the delicate child-brain. Religion would
be weak, indeed, if its power could only be sustained
by fear. Happily such is not the case, and it has
other means of acting on the mind. Spiritism fur-
nishes the religious element with a more efficient
support than superstitious terror. It discloses the
reality of things, and thus substitutes a salutary ap-
preciation of the consequences of wrongdoing for
the vague apprehensions of unreasonable fear.

Two objections to the teachings of Eastern Oc-
cultism still remain to be examined, the only ones
really deserving of the name, because they are the
only ones founded on a rational basis. Both admit
the reality of the material and moral phenomena of
spiritism, but deny the intervention of spirits in
their production.

According to the first of these objections, all the

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 87

manifestations attributed to spirits are merely effects
of magnetism, and mediums are in a state that
might be called waking somnambulism, a phenome-
non which may have been observed by any one who
has studied astral magnetism. In this state the in-
tellectual faculties acquire an abnormal develop-
ment; the circle of our intuitive perceptions is ex-
tended beyond its ordinary limits ; the medium finds
in himself and with the aid of his lucidity, all that
he says, and all the notions transmitted by him, even
in regard to subjects with which he is least familiar
in his usual state.

It is not by us, who have witnessed its prodigies
and studied all its phases during centuries, that the
action of somnambulism could be contested, and we
admit that many spirit-manifestations may be thus
explained; but we assert that sustained and atten-
tive observation shows us a host of facts in which
any intervention of the medium, otherwise than as
a passive instrument, is absolutely impossible. To
those who attribute the phenomena in question to
magnetism, we would say, as to all others, "See,
and observe, for you have certainly not seen every-
thing;" and we would also ask them to consider
the two following points, suggested by their own
view of the subject. In the first place, we would
ask them. What is the origin of the hypothesis of
spirit-action? Is it an explanation invented by a

^ DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

few individuals to account for those phenomena?
Not at all. By whom, then, has it been broached ?
By the very clairvoyants and mediums whose lucid-
ity you extol. But if their lucidity be such as you
declare it to be, why should they attribute to spirits
what they have derived from themselves ? How can
they have given information so precise, logical, sub-
lime in regard to the nature of those extra-human
intelligences? Either mediums are lucid, or they
are not; if they are, and if we trust to their ve-
racity, we cannot, without inconsistency, suppose
them to be in error on this point. In the second
place, if all the phenomena had their source in the
medium himself, they would always be identical in
the case of each individual; and we should never
find the same medium making use of different styles
of expression, or giving utterance to contradictory
statements.

The want of unity so often observed in the mani-
festations obtained by the same medium is a proof
of the diversity of the spiritual sources from which
they proceed; and as the cause of this diversity is
not to be found in the medium himself, it must be
sought for elsewhere.

According to the other objection, the medium is
really the source of the manifestations, but, instead
of deriving them from himself, as is asserted by the
partisans of the somnambulic theory, he derives

SOUL EEINCABNATION. 89

them from the persons among whom he finds him-
self. The medium is a sort of mirror, reflecting all
the thoughts, ideas, and knowledge of those about
him; from which it follows that he says nothing
which is not known to, at least, some of them. It
cannot be denied, for it is one of the fundamental
principles of spiritist doctrine, that those who are
present exercise an influence upon the manifesta-
tions ; but this influence is very different from what
it is assumed to be by the hypothesis I am consid-
ering, and, so far from the medium being the mere
echo of the thoughts of those around him, there are
thousands of facts that prove directly the contrary.
This objection is, therefore, based on a serious mis-
take, and one that shows the danger of hasty judg-
ments ; those who bring it forward, being unable to
deny the reality of occult phenomena which the
science of the day is incompetent to explain, and
being unwilling to admit the presence of spirits, ex-
plain them in their own way. Their theory would
be specious if it explained all the facts of the case;
but this it cannot do. In vain is it proved by the
evidence of facts that the communications of the
medium are often entirely foreign to the thoughts,
knowledge, and even the opinions of those who are
present, and that they are frequently spontaneous,
and contradict all received ideas ; the opponents re-
ferred to are not discouraged by so slight a diffi-

90 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

culty. The radiation of thought, say they, extends
far beyond the circle immediately around us; the
medium is the reflection of the human race in gen-
eral ; so that, if he does not derive his inspirations
from those about him, he derives them from those
who are further off, in the town or country he in-
habits, from the people of the rest of the globe, and
even from those of other spheres.

I do not think that this theory furnishes a more
simple and probable explanation than that given by
spirit control; for it assumes the action of a cause
very much more marvelous. The idea that univer-
sal space is peopled by beings who are in perpetual
contact with us, and who communicate to us their
ideas, is certainly not more repugnant to reason
than the hypothesis of a universal radiation, coming
from every point of the universe, and converging in
the brain of a single individual, to the exclusion of
all the others.

I repeat (and this is a point of such importance
that I cannot insist too strongly upon it), that the
somnambulic theory, and that which may be called
the theory of reflection, have been devised by the
imagination of men; while, on the contrary, the
theory of spirit-agency is not a conception of the
human mind, for it was dictated by the manifesting
intelligences themselves, at a time when no one
thought of spirits, and when the opinion of the gen-

SOUL BEINCAENATION. 91

erality of men was opposed to such a supposition.
We have, therefore, to inquire, first, from what
quarter the mediums can have derived a hypothesis
which had no existence in the thought of any one
on earth? and, secondly, by what strange coinci-
dence it can have happened that tens of thousands
of mediums, scattered over the entire globe, and
utterly unknown to one another, all agree in assert-
ing the same thing? If the first medium who ap-
peared in India was influenced by opinions s^lready
received in another country, by what strange guid-
ance was he made to go in search of ideas across
two thousand leagues of sea, and among a people
whose habits and language were foreign to his own,
instead of taking them in his own immediate vi-
cinity ?

MANIFESTATIONS IN INDIA

But there is yet another circumstance to which
sufficient attention has not been given. The earliest
manifestations, in India, as in other countries, were
not made either by writing or by speech, but by
actual communications, forming words and sen-
tences. It is by this means that the manifesting in-
telligences declared themselves to be astral spirits;
and, therefore, even though we should admit an
intervention of the medium's mind in the produc-
tion of verbal or written communications, we could

92 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

not do so in regard to manifestations, whose mean-
ing could not have been known beforehand

The Hindus might adduce any number of facts
proving the existence of a personal individuality and
an absolutely independent will on the part of the
manifesting intelligence; and we, therefore, invite
our opponents to a more attentive observation of
the phenomena in question, assuring them that, if
they study these without prejudice, and refrain
from drawing a conclusicHi until they have made
themselves thoroughly acquainted with the subject,
they will find that their theories are unable to ac-
count for all of them. We will only propose to such
antagonists the two following queries:

I. Why does it so often happen that the manifest-
ing intelligence refuses to answer certain questions
in regard to matters that are perfectly known to the
questioner, as, for instance, his name or age, what
he has in his hand, what he did yesterday, what he
intends to do on the morrow, etc. ? If the medium
be only a mirror reflecting the thought of those
about him, nothing should be easier for him than to
answer such questions.

If our adversaries retort by inquiring why it is
that spirits, who ought to know everything, are una-
ble to answer questions so simple, and conclude,
from this presumed inability, that the phenomena
cannot be caused by spirits, we would ask them

SOUL BEINCAENATION. 98

whether^ if an ignorant or foolish person should in-
quire of some learned body the reason of its being
light at noonday^ any answer would be returned to
his question? and whether it would be reasonable
to conclude^ from the derision or the silence with
which such a question might be received, that its
members were merely a set of asses ? It is precisely
because they are at a higher point than ourselves
that spirits decline to answer idle and foolish ques-
tions; keeping silence when such are asked, or ad-
vising us to employ ourselves with more serious sub-
jects.

2. We have also to ask them why it is that spir-
its come and depart at their own pleasure, and why,
when once they have taken their departure, neither
prayers nor entreaties can bring them back? If the
medium were acted upon solely by the mental im-
pulsion of those around him, it is evident that the
union of their wills, in such a case, ought to stimu-
late his clairvoyance. If, therefore, he do not yield
to the wishes of those assembled, strengthened by
his own desire, it is because he obeys an influence
which is distinct from himself and from those about
him, and which thus asserts its own independence
and individuality.

Incredulity in regard to a future life and spirit-
communication, when not the result of systematic
opposition from selfish niotives, has almost always

94 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

its source in an imperfect acquaintance with the
facts of the case ; which, however, does not prevent
a good many persons from attempting to settle the
question as though they were perfectly familiar
with it It is possible to be very clever, very
learned, and yet to lack clearness of judgment ; and
a belief in one's own infallibility is the surest sign
of the existence of this defect. Many persons, too,
regard spirit manifestations as being only a mat-
ter of curiosity. Let us hope that the reading of
these writings will show them that the wonderful
phenomena in question are something else than a
pastime.

Spiritism consists of two parts : one of these, the
experimental, deals with the subject of the mani-
festations in general; the other, the philosophic,
deals with the class of manifestations denoting in-
telligence. Whoever has only observed the former
is in the position of one whose knowledge of phys-
ics, limited to experiments of an amusing nature,
does not extend to the fundamental principles of
that science. Eastern Occultism consists of teach-
ings imparted by Astral Spirits and the knowledge
thus conveyed is of a character far too serious to
be mastered without serious and persevering atten-
tion. If the present teachings had no other result
than to show the serious nature of the subject, and
to induce inquirers to approach it in this spirit, it
would be sufficiently important; and we should re-

SOUL EEINCAENATJON. d5

joice to have been chosen for the accomplishment
of a work in regard to which we take no credit to
ourselves, the principles it contains not being of the
Hindu Adept's own creating, and whatever honor it
may obtain being entirely due to the Astral Spirits
by whom it has been dictated. We hope that it will
achieve yet another result — ^viz., that of serving as
a guide to those who are desirous of enlightenment
in Hindu Occultism, by showing them the grand and
sublime end of individual and social progress to
which the teachings of Hindu Spiritism directly
tend, and by pointing out to them the road by which
alone that end can be reached.

Let us wind up these introductory remarks with
one concluding observation. Astronomers, in
sounding the depths of the sky, discovered seem-
ingly vacant spaces not in accordance with the gen-
eral laws that govern the distribution of the heav-
enly bodies, and they therefore conjectured that
those spaces were occupied by globes that had
escaped their observation. On the other hand, they
observed certain effects the cause of which was
unknown to them; and they said to themselves, "In
such a region of space there must be a world, for
otherwise there would be a void that ought not to
exist; and the effects we have observed imply the
presence in that seeming void of such a world as
their cause." Reasoning, then, from those effects

96 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

to their cause, they calculated the elements of the
globe whose presence they had inferred, and facts
subsequently justified their inference. Let us apply
the same mode of reasoning to another order of
ideas. If we observe the series of beings, we find
that they form a continuous chain from brute matter
to man. But between man and God, who is the
Alpha and Omega of all things, what an immense
hiatus! Is it reasonable to suppose that the links
of the chain stop short with man, that he can vault,
without transition, over the distance which separates
him from the Infinite? Reason shows us that be-
tween man and God there must be other links, just
as it showed the astronomers that between the
worlds then known to them there must be other
worlds as yet unknown to them. What system
of philosophy has filled this hiatus ? Spiritism shows
that it is filled with the beings of all the ranks of the
invisible world, and that these beings are no other
than the spirits of men who have reached the suc-
cessive degrees that lead up to perfection; and all
things are thus seen to be linked together from one
end of the chain to the other. Let those who deny
the existence of spirits tell us what are the occu-
pants of the immensity of space which spirits de-
clare to be occupied by them; and let those who
scoff at the idea of spirit-teachings give us a nobler
idea than is given by those teachings of the handi-

SOUL KEINCABNATION. 97

work of God, a more convincing demonstration of
His goodness and His power.

OCCULT PHENOMENA

Phenomena which are inexplicable by any
known physical laws are occurring all over the
world, and revealing the action of a free and intd-^
ligent will as their cause.

Reason tells us that an intelligent effect must have
an intelligent force for its cause; and facts have
proved that this force is able to enter into com-
munication with men by the employment of material
signs.

This force, interrogated as to its nature, has de-
clared itself to belong to the world of spiritual
beings who have thrown off the corporeal envelope
of men. It is thus that the existence of spirits has
been revealed to the Hindu Adepts.

Communication between the spirit world and the
corporeal world is in the nature of things, and has
in it nothing supernatural. Traces of its existence
are to be found among all nations and in every age ;
they are now becoming general and evident to all.
Spirits assure us that the time appointed by Provi-
dence for a universal manifestation of their exist-
ence has now come; and that their mission, as the
ministers of God and the instruments of His will,
is to inaugurate, through the instructions they are

98 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

charged to convey to us, a new era of regeneration
for the human race.

This "Book of Death" is a compilation of their
teachings. It has been written by the order and
under the dictation of disembodied spirits of high
degree, for the purpose of establishing the bases of
a rational philosophy, free from the influence of
prejudices and of preconceived opinions. It con-
tains nothing that is not the expression of their
thought; nothing that has not been submitted to
their approbation. The method adopted in the ar-
rangement of its contents, the comments upon these,
and the form given to certain portions of the work,
are all that has been contributed by Dr. L. W. de
Laurence, to whom the duty of giving it to the
world has been entrusted.

Many of the spirits who have taken part in the
accomplishment of this task declare themselves
to have been persons whom we know to have lived
at different epochs upon the earth, preaching and
practising virtue and wisdom. Of the names of
others, history has preserved no trace ; but their ele-
vation is attested by the purity of their doctrine and
their union with those who bear venerated names.

We transcribe the words in which, by writing,
through the intermediary of various Hindu
mediums, the mission of preparing this book was
confided to the writer: —

SOUL BEmCABNATION. 99

ADVICE FROM ASTRAL SPIRITS TO
DR. DE LAURENCE

"Be zealous and persevering in the work you
have undertaken in conjunction with us, for this
work is ours. In the teachings you are to give the
world, we shall lay the foundations of the new
edifice which is destined to unite all men in a com-
mon sentiment bf love and charity; but, before
making it public, we shall go through it with you,
so as to ensure its accuracy.

"We shall be with you whenever you ask for our
presence, and shall aid you in all your labors; for
the preparation of this work is only a part of the
mission which has been confided to you, and of
which you have already been informed by one
of us.

"Of the magical teachings given to you, some are
to be kept to yourself for the present ; we shall tell
you when the time for publishing them has come.
Meanwhile make them the subject of your medita-
tions, that you may be ready to treat of them at the
proper moment.

"Put at the beginning of The Book of Death the
Hindu S)rmbol we have drawn for that purpose, be-
cause it is the emblem of the worth of the Hindu.
In it are united all the material elements that most

100 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

fitly symbolize body and spirit ; the figure represents
the Astral World of Spirits; the letters spelling the
word DEATH; the flame, the union of body and
spirit. Man's labor calls forth the latent qualities of
the spirit; the labor of the body develops, through
the knowledge thus acquired, the latent powers of
the soul.

"Do not allow yourself to be discouraged by hos-
tile criticism. You will have rancorous contra-
dictors, especially among those whose interest it is to
keep up existing abuses. You will have such even
among spirits; for those who are not completely
(fematerialized often endeavor, out of malice or
ignorance, to scatter abroad the seeds of doubt. Be-
lieve in immortal life, and go boldly forward. We
shall be with you to sustain you on your way; and
the time is at hand when the truth of spiritism will
shine forth on all sides.

"The vanity of some men, who imagine that they
know ever)rthing, and are bent on explaining every-
thing in their own way, will give rise to opposing
opinions; but all who have in view the grand prin-
ciple of Magic will be united in the same love of
goodness, and in a bond of brotherhood that will
embrace the entire world. Putting aside all vain
disputes about words, they will devote their ener-
gies to matters of practical importance, in regard
to which, whatever their doctrinal belief, the con-

SOUL REINCAENATION. 101

victions of all who receive the communications of
the higher spirits will he the same.

"Perseverance will render your labor fruitful. The
pleasure you will feel in witnessing the spread of
our doctrine and its right appreciation will be for
you a rich reward, though perhaps rather in thl^
future than in the present. Be not troubled by the
thorns and stones that the incredulous and the evil-
minded will place in your path ; hold fast your con-
fidence, for your confidence will ensure oiu* help,
and, through it, you will reach the goal.

"Remember that good spirits only give their aid
to those who serve God with humility and disinter-
estedness ; they disown all who use heavenly things
as a stepping-stone to earthly advancement, and this
the High Caste Adepts of India never do, and with-
draw from the proud and the ambitious. Pride and
ambition are a barrier between man and God; for
they blind man to the splendors of spiritual exist-
ence, and God cannot employ the blind to make
known the light and truth of this Great Wisdom."

CHAPTER V.

DEATH

The elements of the soul of man in their very
nature are such that they are a substantial psychic
organism which extends throughout the entire phys-
ical body, permeating the whole nervous system.

Again the soul of man is strictly a psychic and
not a physical organism. Neither is it subject to the
ordinary physical laws of dissolution and lies, as
such, absolutely without the range of chemical
analysis.

The human soul always has and always shall be
subject to the conditions and laws of evolution and
when the soul ceases to inhabit the body, abandoning
its earthly habitation, it changes a condition of its
existence ; this condition being of no further use for
its future progress or future evolution.

The condition of the soul, its desires, powers, the
intellectual faculties and their law of action remain
the same after the so-called death. In other words,
a man, woman or child remain the same whether
they exist in the physical body or on the Antral
Plane.

104 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

Death or soul transition, so much talked of and
so little understood by the ordinary individual and
western scientists in general, is simply a decided
change in the present condition of the soul's exist-
ence, but does not in the least affect its essence or
actual existence, neither does it interfere with, or
in any way affect its organism, faculties, desires or
possibilities, and the practical student of Eastern
Occultism may accept it as a Sacred Truth, that the
lives of men, women and children, whom many
speak of as departed spirits, have an actual and real
existence after the^ so-called death.

ADVANCED STUDENTS OF OCCULTISM

Those who deserve to be numbered among the
advanced students of Occultism must first realize
this great truth, for ye may fail to fulMl a law, but
none of ye can break or destroy a law by skepticism.

The soul is immortal and eternal, its law is eternal
existence. Every soul continues to develop and in-
crease in growth, power and understanding up to
the minute of its departure from the body. Why
does it diepart ? For this is what ye western people
call death. My answer to you is simply because it
can make no other progress in its present condition;
that is while it remains in the body, but why should
any sane person be so foolish as to assume that
there is a cessation of existence ? Is it any sign that

SOUL EEINCABNATION. 105

because a drop, body or stream of water is drawn up
and attracted toward the sun that it ceases to exist
entirely? Certainly not so, for it only changes its
condition of existence.

The only actual and essential difference between
the existence of the soul while it inhabits the body
and after it ceases to inhabit it and ascends to the
Astral Plane is that it becomes, strictly speaking,
^'Clairvoyant/^ it being literally spiritual in its ex-
istence and no longer encumbered with the physical
organism, its sense of preception is spiritual instead
of material and of course becomes Clairvoyant

ASTRAL GUIDES AND SPIRITS

When the human soul passes fully into its great
astral existence, the Clairvoyant and Spiritual graces
of the soul will henceforth rule. The whole soul of
man becomes transformed and for the first time his
soul will be brought into complete unison with
Astral Guides and Spirits, and his eternal life. Man
is then, and only then, able to yield in full obedience
to high spiritual laws and then to perceive clairvoy-
antly. He then becomes master of himself through-
out and the perfect obedience, duration and extent
of his powers will be co-extensive with his desires.
With this change will come that development called
New, or Spiritual Birth. It is then the spiritual
sense will become refined and powerful, so much

106 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

SO that all will see the innermost thoughts and de-
sires of their friends and associates still in the body
and they can enter into intimate spirit communica-
tion with them.

Man during his earthly existence with his physical
senses to only partly inform him as to the true and
actual facts of his existence may doubt some of
these things. But did you ever stop to think that
when you walk into a room that, although you do
not see that in order to do this, you are compelled
to force an amount of air, equal to the size of your
body, out of the enclosure. You may not realize
that to swing your body or arm through the air you
must push the air first before your body or arm.
And let me say right here that you have many things
to learn. Many and numerous are the revelations
that you will receive and the time will slowly but
surely come when you will realize how little you
know or ever knew. For does a tree grow and ex-
pand all at once? Can a grain of wheat feel, know
and literally realize what it means to be developed
and expanded into a growing sprout.

If the Air, Auror and Ether were visible to the
physical eye how many would grow more weary
walking or running. Then again the Great Western
Scientist and Philosopher (so-called) would never
have dared to have thought of shaping his absurd,
nonsensical and incomprehensible story and theory

SOUL EEINCABNATION. 107

of vacant space as that which has so long disgraced
their teachings. They have built their philosophy
upon a vast and vague basis of nothingness, for they
have sought to build before the student a great tem-
ple of mysteries and theology. A nonsensical and
impenetrable wall and barrier of infinitude to keep
mankind from any true or definite knowledge of his
Divine existence.

Man's life during his present and future existence
would be far better termed immortal than so one-
sided.

Certain theories have served very well as a scare-
crow for many learned pseudo-philosophers and
scientists to frighten and intimidate their fellow
beings and followers. Many a sprout has taught his
followers that as the Almighty is Infinite, and that
all Astral and Spiritual powers are such, and that
therefore the mortal mind of man cannot compre-
hend them, but that they should trustingly and most
blindly accept such as sublime mysteries. Such
teachings are directly opposed to the true law of the
Soul. Many have said that in immortal life man
shall have knowledge of himself. But it is the
Divine Right and duty of every Soul to learn, for
when a true and Sacred Knowledge of Spiritism
fills the soul Blind faith and mystery cannot exist
there.

108 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

PSEUDO-PHILOSOPHERS

One of the great and glaring errors of our pseudo-
philosophers is in regard to the first beginning cause.
But let me illustrate to you the following example
cloaked with their ignorance.

The natural change and alteration of common
combustion in any flame will cause light. This light
in its turn must cause an effect and impression on
the eyeball and optic nerve. This in its turn makes
an impression on the brain; and in the natural
course of events becomes the origin and cause of
a train or succession of ideas and thoughts or deep
emotions, but do not forget that in this case as in
every other of its kind the effect and motion is trans-
ferred from one object to another and what termi-
nates as an effect at one end or step is the origin
or beginning of a cause and effect at the beginning
of another change.

So you must plainly see that cause and effect are
only terms when rightfully used to designate the
points or steps in the change of conditions in the life
of men. This line, strange to state, is always a
circle, because all forces and causes are convertible;
therefore it becomes evident that there cannot be a
beginning and first cause of anything any more than
there is a beginning or end to man's life.

The reader or student of these writings will be

SOUL REINCAENATION. 109

surprised indeed to learn that Adepts of India must
be thoroughly familiar with every department of
science and research, also have a detailed knowledge
of all operations, also of the First Principles of
Natural Magic, Astrology, Alchemy, Botany,
Mineralogy, Chemistry, etc., etc. Indeed he must
become intimately acquainted with every subject
coming within the scope of earth and spiritual life.
He must be educated by spiritual advisers and medi-
tate for years in deep thought and logic, and live the
life of one who has raised the spiritual veil so that
nothing in the past, present or future is hidden or
misunderstood.

He sees how the Western man clings to the "illu-
sion of time." Realizes that even their most pro-
found and stable of sciences (Mathematics) is based
and on "The Airy Fabric of Vision." For there
is no such thing as "Time." It is as much of an
illusion as is the conception of space. The Western
man and scientist believes that time is a succession
of events.

What is a minute, an hour, a month, a century ?

The Western Scientist says that twenty-four
hours constitute a day, the length of time our planet
consumes in rotating once around its axis.

Take the circumference of the earth, separate it
into twenty- four equal parts, stand a man at each of

110 DEATH AND HINDU SPIHIT18M.

these twenty-four given points ; what will be the re-
sult?

The Western scientist will answer you by reply-
ing that there would be one hour's time between
each of the twenty-four men. Now move your men
twenty degrees further north or south; you would
certainly have them nearer together; but still there
would be an hour's difference in time between each,
for you say the globe rotates once every twenty-four
liours; again move your twenty- four men so near
the pole that they can shake hands, or join hands,
forming a complete circle by actual contact. Now,
according to the Western idea of space and time,
there would be an hour's difference of time in each.
If it would be one o'clock by one man's watch it is
two o'clock by the man^s watch to the right and
twelve o'clock by the man's watch to the left. These
men connected in a circle by joining hands could,
according to your theory of time and space, travel
in ten minutes over a hundred years of time.

They could turn the opposite way and walk into
the vanished centuries of the past, or you could annul
time completely by going to the next man at the
minute an hour was about to expire, or by stand-
ing on the North Pole itself always have it one
o'clock. This in itself would be superfluous, as no
time exists there.

What the Western mathematician terms mathe-

SOUL EEINCARNATION. Ill

matics or the science of numbers and their quantity
is another illustration of "an illusion," the same
as their idea of time, for what are your mathematics
founded upon ? Simply upon a presumptions, hypo-
thetical assumption. That is to say, that your num-
bers in themselves, individually or collectively,
amount to nothing, for as an example, the number
one certainly has no existence. This, of course, will
seem odd and in a great sense a revelation, but it
is as old and eternal as the mountains themselves,
for what is the Western mathematician's number
one? An object or individual must certainly relate
to some actual existing object or article, for all
abstract conceptions are ideal and consequently un-
real. Is it a city, a horse or a river? The certain
city, horse or river will not appear the same to any
two or more persons on this earth. The reason of
this is that there are no two minds, as far as out-
ward conception is concerned, that are exactly alike.
Again the city which you observe this day is not the
city which you beheld or observed yesterday or a
week ago, as during this time your mind and soul
have undergone many changes, however slight, and
the universe to you is no longer the same. Your
science of numbers is then founded upon a some-
thing which has no tangible or even definable exist-
ence, and when you stop to think and consider your
science of mathematics you will realize that it is an

112 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

incongruous conglomeration, overflowing with con-
tradictions and absurdities. To illustrate : An indi-
vidual can picture things, imagining a possibility of
reaching it or approaching an object without the
least opportunity or chance of really approaching or
reaching it. Now this is exactly what your Western
infallible scientists and mathematicians teach you.
We will assume now, for instance, that you are in-
debted to a' second party for a certain amount of
money, or say a twenty-dollar gold piece, and you
enter into an agreement with said party to pay or
discharge said obligation in the following manner:
that is, one-half or part of said gold piece you will
pay tomorrow, one-fourth of the same you will pay
the following month and so on ; now you are always
paying one-half of the amount you have disbursed
on the previous month. Have you any idea what
length of time you will have to continue discharging
this obligation or making payments, or when your
obligation or debt will be cancelled and paid? An
individual might keep this up and go on discharging
his debt month after month for many millions of
years and he would never pay oflf that gold piece.
This illustration or sample of your fallacy of num-
bers is an exact truth, but many a Western mathe-
matician prodigy will say it is self-evident, yet to
him it involves a profound, far-reaching mystery.

SOUIi EEINCABNATION. 113

SACRED CASTE OF INDIA

To further illustrate the fallacy of Western mathe-
matics you are continuously adding one fraction to
another and heaping up certain amounts of gold to
an everlasting eternity without the slightest or re-
motest possibility of reaching the amount of your
gold piece, for stop again and think that every pay-
ment lands you a trifle nearer the goal, but you
never reach it. Does this not in itself demonstrate
the fallacy of your entire science of numbers and
prove that the same is "an illusion?" Man's exist-
ence outside of the Sacred Caste of India is cer-
tainly not one of peace of mind or joy, for during
his earthly existence does he dwell in a state of hap-
piness or sorrow and grief? Can you realize or
recall a single day during your existence when you
were thoroughly contented and free from desires or
wish for amelioration? Are you perfectly contented
now? A man may roam and travel everywhere;
this in itself will be an education unto him and
bring him in contact with many different races and
species of mankind, but he will never meet an indi-
vidual, old or young, rich or poor, of high or low
Caste, king or peasant, who is perfectly contented
with his condition on earth, for he will be filled with
a desire and longing for something more and better.
The human soul never has and never will be free

114 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

from amelioration, or ever become contented, be-
cause the very nature of his soul and his existence
on the earth plane attracts to him and involves grief
and tears. The constitution of man, his faculties
and desires of his soul are the same all around the
globe. They differ slightly, of course, in a degree,
but he must necessarily possess the same qualities
of soul for his universal adaptation to the law of
life. Man's earthly existence in itself is conducive
to, and signifies pain, both bodily and mentally, for
he is encumbered with a material body, with a thou-
sand and one desires which he will never be able to
gratify. Consequently his existence instead of being
a condition that is of advantage to him in his present
state is an existence of longing and suffering, al-
though he may exist under the most favorable con-
ditions, and what he may term contentment and
peace this hour is only a temporary absence of pain
and want, but in time pain, desire and a longing will
fill up this space the same as darkness will fill a room
that is light. The earthly existence of man is full of
sorrow and pain. The sensitive human soul feels
the pangs of agony and sorrow that are thrown out
by the millions of despairing human hearts and souls
around it; consequently, how can it remain serene
and peaceful surrounded by so much sorrow and
suffering ? The great cardinal principle of Eastern
Occultism and its teachings is soul reincarnation.

SOUL REINCARNATION. 115

The same has been subject to great thought and
study by the Western man, but many have failed to
grasp the far-reaching significance of this great
philosophy. He is given to doubt the great eternal
law and truth of soul reincarnation. Yet nothing is
more self-evident. No man is able to recall to his
memory the previous condition of his existence, and
because of this he believes it an impossibility. Does
any person recall to memory the first six months or
year of his earthly life? Yet he existed three and
six months in an embryonic state before his birth,
but has no recollection of this condition, but within
every human soul, through the faculty of intuition,
there is a consciousness that he has existed forever-
more. Are you able to call to mind a day or second
when you did not exist? or a time when your soul
or spirit will ever cease to exist ? Death, as referred
to previously in this chapter, is simply a change in
conditions of the existence and actual condition of
the soul. The soul certainly survives the change of
conditions. The great advantage of death, or soul
transition, lies in the fact that you are leaving -behind
and abandoning your poor physical body, which
has held you down like a mighty weight, but the
thought and sorrow that depresses the soul when it
entertains the thought of death is driven out when
you recollect that after soul transition you will dwell
with those who have passed to the spirit, life, and

116 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITI8M.

who are near and dear to you, and that your life
ever after will be thoroughly happy. No human
soul would desire or really look upon it as a blessing
to enter a state of eternal existence encumbered with
a diseased and worn physical body, for when the
soul leaves the body it rids itself of it and its
memories, which soon fade from the mind. The
body and physical senses in themselves have been
the means of our entertaining many illusions and
follies. They have been the instigator of many of
our crimes and shortcomings. The future state of
existence of the soul is not one that will involve
trouble or sorrow. Man's whole life is an illusion,
and the past a dream, his present state of existence
is actual, his future on the earth plane also is an
illusion as far as the bodily senses are concerned,
because, as has been stated, he is never satisfied or
contented with his present surroundings or condi-
tion, and is always cherishing a hope of wealth and
future happiness some time in the future, but to him
it is always in the future. His tomorrow becomes
today, and a year from this day he expects to be
happy, but that blissful time never materializes. The
things and objects that he has so greatly desired
and has expected to gain, flee from him like a rain-
bow or like a bird that flits from branch to branch.
Thus it is ever through life on the earth plane. Old
men and women let their memory flit and dwell back

SOUL BEINCARNATION. 117

over their past life like an individual who wakes
up in the morning contemplating upon a dream.
Then, and only then, the whole truth comes upon
them that they have been chasing a rainbow, exist-
ing in a paradise that has been folly, for how many
desire to live over again their life if they were to
undergo the same storms of fate, ambition and
revenge ?

WESTERN TEACHINGS

Religion in the Western churches contains no
immortality. The continuation of the soul after
death to many of its members is a mere fanciful
philosophy and it comes to them as a dim shadow.
Nevertheless it is a stern reality, for death does not
extinguish forever the human soul. It is true that
that which begins at a given time must end at a
given time. No man's life can begin at a certain
period and go on ever afterwards, for if the life of
man were to begin at a certain time and end at a
given time this would have happened long, long, ago,
as a great eternity lies behind you^ Western teach-
ings are not conducive to a man's studying or rea-
soning a thing out from an Occult or spiritual
standpoint. His views are purely material, every-
thing is doubt and uncertainty, he is surrounded by
a maze of doubts. He has no consciousness of the
great Occult and spiritual powers which concern

118 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

him. Many have little knowledge of the spiritual
influences that seek to educate and develop him, for
in his poor material blind way he turns his back and
closes his soul to them. Many even sneer at the
teachings of these great Hindu philosophers, but
the individual who has become developed in things
spiritual can easily feel those Occult and Spiritual
powers which are concealed from the multitude of
materialists or those who have not developed spir-
itual sight, but the Western student or scientist must
ever realize that when he sneers at Eastern Occult-
ism or the teachings of the great philosophers, that
all ancient wisdom and "wise men" have come from
the East. The Jesus of the Holy Scripture thor-
oughly understood the Occult secrets of the Eastern
Cult and Brotherhood. Again, the Hindu of Sacred
Caste, from the land of the Lotus and Magic, has
descended from the subtle races who have developed
strange and wonderful powers and have reached the
highest pinnacle of spiritual culture. India was
enchanted when Abraham and his cattle crossed the
plains of Chaldea. The Hindu Priest, owing to his
love for deep thought and solitary meditation, has
developed latent powers and faculties far superior
to the Western man. The Western student has the
philosophy and teachings, also the life and works
of Jesus, the Christ, and his Apostles written in the
New Testament, but sad to say, there are few who

SOUL EEINCABNATION. 119

are able to interpret them, and while it is not my
intention to make any comparison between Christ,
the Divine Nazarene, and Buddha, it should be
plainly understood that the fundamental principles
that underlie all religions are the same. A deep
student of Occultism respects every teaching and
every form and manner of religion. He makes no
distinction between the rich and poor, the great and
lowly, members of any creed or of any church.
These g^eat Hindu philosophers have passed beyond
this. They are true Christians in every sense of the
word, and are broad enough in their comprehension
to realize the truth in the different religions. The
hypocritical, narrow-minded church member of
Christian thinks that he sees a vast difference and
inquires, "Is this man of our creed and church?"
but to the true Adept, in whom dwells great spiritual
light and power, some good at least is to be ac-
quired by all of the many forms of true faith. To
him all souls are eternal from one eternal God head.
True spiritism should teach mankind that his life
on the earth plane, while filled with dread and
despair, is one of growth and development which
will ultimately lead him to wisdom and harmony.

THE FEAR OF DEATH

The fear of death by those persons who believe
in the future life is altogether misplaced, but when

120 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

people "from birth have been thoroughly indoctri-
nated into the belief that there is a Hell as well as a
Heaven, and that they will most likely go to the
former, because whatever belongs to human life is a
mortal sin for the soul, they are naturally afraid, if
they retained their religious belief, of the fire that
is to bum them forever without destroying them.
But most of those who are thus indoctrinated in
their childhood, if possessed of judgment, throw
aside that belief when they grow up, and, being un-
able to assent to such a doctrine, become atheists or
materialists ; so that the natural effect of such teach-
ings is to make them believe that there is nothing
beyond this present life. "Death has no terrors for
the righteous man, because, with faith, he has the
certainty of a future life; hope leads him to expect
an existence happier than his present one, and char-
ity, which has been the law of his action, gives him
the assurance that, in the world which he is about
to enter, he will meet with no one whose recognition
he will have reason to dread."

Inasmuch as death leads us to a better life, and
since it delivers us from the ills of our present exist-
ence, and is therefore to be rather desired than
dreaded, many may wonder why in man there exists
this instinctive dread of death, but as I have told
you man must seek to prolong his life in order to
accomplish his task. To this end God has given him

SOUL REINCARNATION. 121

the instinct of self-preservation, and this instinct
sustains him under all trials ; but for it he would too
often abandon himself to discouragement. The inner
voice, which tells him to repel death, tells him also
that he may yet do something more for his advance-
ment. Every danger that threatens him is a warn-
ing that bids him make a profitable use of the respite
granted to him by God; but he, ungrateful, gives
ithanks more often to his "star of good fortune"
than to his "creator."

The carnally-minded man, more attracted by cor-
poreal life than by the life of the spirit, knows only
the pains and pleasures of terrestrial existence. His
only happiness is in the fugitive satisfaction of his
earthly desires; his mind, constantly occupied with
the vicissitudes of the present life and painfully
affected by them, is tortured with perpetual anxiety.
The thought of death terrifies him because he has
doubts about his future, and because he has to leave
all his affections and all his hopes behind him when
he leaves the earth. The spiritually-minded man,
who has raised himself above the fictitious wants
created by the passions, has, even in this lower life,
enjojrments unknown to the carnally-minded. The
moderation of his desires gives calmness and serenity
to his spirit. Happy in the good he does, life has
no disappointments for him, and its vexations pass
lightly over his consciousness, without leaving upon
it any painful impress.

122 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

The human soul after it has ceased to inhabit the
physical body and at death passes to the Astral
Plane still possesses the powers of perception which
it possessed in earth life, and many others which it
did not possess in that life, because its body acted as
a veil which obscured them. Intelligence is an
attribute of spirit; but it is manifested more freely
when not hindered by the trammels of flesh. "The
nearer the soul approaches to perfection the more
it knows. Spirits of the higher orders possess a
wide range of knowledge ; those of the lower orders
are more or less ignorant in regard to everything."

The life of spirits is exterior to the idea of time
as perceived by us. The idea of duration may be
said to be annihilated for them ; ages, which seems
>so long to us, appear to them only as so many in-
stants lapsing into eternity, just as the inequalities
of the earth's surface are effaced and disappear be-
neath the gaze of the aeronaut as he mounts into
space. Spirits take a truer and more precise view
of the present than we do. "Their view, in com-
parison with yours, is pretty much what eyesight is
in comparison with blindness. They see what you
do not see; they judge, therefore, otherwise than
you do. But I must remind you that this depends
on their degree of elevation." Spirits acquire the
knowledge of the past, and this knowledge is with-
out limits for them. "The past, when spirits turn

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 123 C^

their attention to it, is perceived by them as though
it were present, exactly as is the case with you when
you call to mind something which may have struck
you in the course of your present life, with this dif-
ference, however, that, as Astral Spirit's view is no
longer obscured by the material veil which covers
your intelligence, they remember things that are at
present effaced from your memory. But Spirits do
not know everything; for example, their creation."

When spirits foresee the future it depends on
their ^egree of advancement. Very often they fore-
see it only partially ; but, even when they foresee it
more clearly, they are not always permitted to reveal
it. When they foresee it it appears to them to be
present. A spirit sees the future more clearly in
proportion as he approaches God. After death the
soul sees and embraces at a glance all its past emigra-
tions ; but it cannot see what God has in store for it.
This foreknowledge is only possessed by the soul
that has attained to entire union with God after a
long succession of existences.

Spirits require no light in order to see things that
are transpiring on the earth plane, as spirits trans-
port themselves from point to point with the rapidity
of thought they may be said to see everywhere at
the same time. A spirit's thought may radiate at
the same moment on many different points ; but this
faculty depends on his purity. The more impure

124 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

the spirit the narrower is his range of sight. It is
only the higher spirits who can take in the whole at
a single glance.

THE FACULTY OF VISION AMONG

SPIRITS

The faculty of vision among spirits is a property
inherent in their nature, and which resides in their
whole being, as light resides in every part of a
luminous body. It is a sort of a universal lucidity,
which extends to everything, which embraces at one
time space and things, and in relation to which dark-
ness or material obstacles have no existence. And
a moment's reflection shows that this must neces-
sarily be the case. In the human being, sight being
produced by the play of an organ acted upon by
light, it follows that, without light, man finds him-
self in darkness; but the faculty of vision being an
attribute of the spirit himself, independentely of any
exterior agent, spirit-sight is independent of light.
Spirits see more distinctly than mankind, for their
sight penetrates what his cannot. They are also
able to perceive and hear sounds that mankind with
his obtuse senses cannot hear, as all the percepted
faculties of a spirit are attributes of its nature form-
ing part of its being. When man is encumbered
with a physical body his sense of perception reach
only through the channels of his physical sense

SOUL REINCARNATION. 125

organs. Spirits of higher orders see- and hear only
what they choose to, but evil spirits are compelled to
see and hear, often against their will,- whatever may
be useful for their amelioration. Spirits are also
affected by music, but there is no comparison with
the music of the celestial realms, the harmony of
which nothing on the earth plane can compare. The
one in comparison with the other is crude and
the melodies of spirit life are one of perfect har-
mony. Earth-bound spirits, however, take great
pleasure in hearing the music that is made by the
hand of man, because they have not yet been able to
appreciate anything more sublime. Music has great
charms for spirits and is one of the best means of
invocation, owing to the great development of their
sensitive organs. Spirits do not experience our
physical ailments and sufferings, as they know them,
because they have undergone them, but they do not
have to experience them materially : they are spirits.
Neither do spirits experience fatigue and the need
of rest. "They cannot feel fatigue as you under-
stand it, and consequently they have no need of your
corporeal rest, because they have no organs whose
strength requires to be restored. But a spirit may
be said to take rest, inasmuch as he is not constantly
in a state of activity. He .does not act materially;
his action is altogether intellectual, and his resting
is altogether moral; that is to say, that there are

126 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

moments when his thoughts become less active and
is no longer directed to any special object, and this
constitutes for him a state which is really one of
repose, but a kind of repose which cannot be likened
to that of the body. The sort of fatigfue which may
be felt by spirits is proportionate to their inferiority ;
for the higher their degree of elevation the less is
their need of rest.

PROOFS OF IMMORTALITY AFTER DEATH

*^Evidence adduced to demonstrate a peaceful and
happy state beyond the tomb."

Death brings every human being face to face with
the greatest mystery known to man. It is that
which closes all the scenes that lie between the morn
of laughter and the night of tears, and where ends
the false and true, the joys and griefs, the careless,
shallow and the tragic deeps of earthly life.

But why should you dread that which will come
to all that that is? You do not know, you cannot
realize which is the greatest blessing, life or death.
You cannot say that death is not better, and those
of you who believe in immortality know that the
grave is not the end of your existence, but that it
is the door to another and more beautiful life, and
that the night of sadness here is the dawn of your
soul into spiritual life.

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 127

No person standing beside a* grave has any right
to prophesy a future life filled with pain and sorrow ;
for death gives all there is of worth to life, and
those who stand with breaking hearts around the
coffin of their dead need have no fear or sorrow for
their future; for death, even at the worst, is only
life continued.

You all must know that every human being pre-
fers happiness to misery, and that sorrow and gloom
are but the result of mistakes, and when we look
with pity upon those around us, upon their pain and
poverty, their sorrow and despair, we realize the
truth of the celebrated Hindu Adept's words, who
was great and good enough to say:

''There is no darkness, but ignorance/'

It is only ignorance of what death really is that
causes anyone to regard it with dread and sorrow, as
it has been noticed by many observing people who'
have been at the bedside of a dying friend or loved
one that just as the soul is about to leave the poor,
diseased body a bright smile appears in the face.
The dying seem to realize and see that they are
going to a better and happier life.

The old idea of a fiery hell and eternal torment is
fading away, and this generation seems to be get-
ting a nearer insight into the spiritual and eternal
life beyond the tomb, and that there is still some-

12S DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

thing warm and familiar in those loved ones of ours
for whom we yearn our past the grave, not cold and
ghastly as they seemed at death, but human and
sympathetic, with familiar faces; for they are not
lost utterly to us even on earth, only a little farther
off.

There is a great wave of spiritual light spreading
over the Western world, bringing man nearer to his
ascended friends. The horizon broadens and is
filled with a golden light and warmth. Man need
not be afraid to die; for the soul there is no death,
only continuous life.

There will come a day when it will be demon-
strated that the human soul throughout earthly ex-
istence lives in a condition where it can have com-
munion, actual and indissoluble, with those who
have passed to the spirit world beyond, and that they
can come to us at any time and are with' us many
times when we have no knowledge of their presence.

Death is a delighted transition to light and peace
with no fear; the dying, as the earthly eyes grow
dim, can with their spiritual sight look across the
border to that higher life. Voices from the spirit
land are human and natural; for the only angels
there are those of our friends and loved ones. All
superstitious dread of ghosts and the dead should
be banished, as should dread and terror of death,
and in their place should come that sweet and sacred

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 129

feeling of the lover and husband described in the
following beautiful spiritual poem:

ALONE WERE HE AND SHE

"She is dead" they said to him, "Come away!

Kiss her and leave her, thy love in clay."

And they held their breaths, as they left the room

With a shudder, to glance at the stillness and gloom.

But he who loved her too well to dread

The sweet, the stately, the beautiful dead,

He lit his lamp and took his key

And turned it — "alone were he and she"

Our spirit, or our soul, is clad in an earthly body,
and the spirits or souls from that higher life are clad
in Astral Bodies. It may be asked in regard to
spirit manifestations and communications, how are
these things done? Tell me how you think; tell me
how buds become flowers and blossoms fruit, or how
all live and grow, or read carefully the ensuing pages
of this volume on "Death" and they will tell you.
All are as fully in accord with the natural law as the
blooming of the rose or the rush of this great globe
we live on, through the viewless air.

The human heart hungers for the real presence of
the dear departed. The tenderest sympathies and
affections, the deepest demands of the soul and the
loftiest range of the intellect, all reach toward the

130 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

spirit life beyond and would make it interblend natu-
rally and beautifully with our own earth life; com-
munication with the souls of the dead meet these
desires and should cause a harmonious search for
truth and light. The fact of their presence near and
with you is proof positive of immortality. They
come to you, you feel their presence, realize their
influence, yet you heed them not, due to ignorance
of the science of Occultism and the human mind or
soul. Possibly external scientific proofs of all this
can not always be had by the materialist, but can the
human mind be measured by a yardstick, or a soul
weighed in a balance, or seen under the Western
man's microscope?

The yardstick philosophy of your most sapient
scientists is inadequate in cases like this, and their
solemn head-wagging over what it will not account
for begins to look foolish to discerning people. They
do good work in their way, but they cannot dissect
a soul or measure God's universe. There are sev-
eral things yet for them to learn more of : especially
do they need to learn two things : That the Astral
Spirits (souls of the dead) can realize your danger
or weakness and guide and protect you, and that to
ridicule or repudiate what you cannot understand
is what really wise men never do.

The Western world is now entering upon a new
era. The future will mark the past century as the

SOUL BEINCARNATION. 131

era of intellectual freedom and activity, of spiritual
light, of material development and inventive genius,
and the century-now opening as the era of spiritual
culture and a more deep and interesting stqdy of
the human mind or soul of man. Every one is anx-
ious to learn more of the Occult Powers of the soul,
that mysterious and immaterial part of man, and
those who interest themselves in the study of Indian
Occultism and spiritualism will receive their reward.
It is known throughout India and all Oriental coun-
tries that the spirits of the dead visit and influence
the living. This knowledge has been in all ages, in
all Eastern countries, an accepted fact not confined
to rustics, but participated in by good and intelligent
men.

If human testimony can be of any value there is
a body of evidence reaching from the remotest ages
to the present time, as extensive and unimpeachable
as is to be found in the support of anything what-
ever that the souls of the dead do return. Spirit
manifestations and communications come to us in
our highest and purest condition of mind. It is then
that the soul asserts its immortality. It demonstrates
that your soul can and does exist without the brain,
and is an intelligence still when disconnected from
your material body. It furnishes proof of a future
life for which so many crave, and for want of which

132 DEATH AND HINDU SPIKITISM.

SO many live and die in anxious doubt, so many in
positive disbelief.

SPIRIT MANIFESTATIONS IN
MYSTIC INDIA

I have witnessed Spirit manifestations in many
parts of Mystic India. Spirit communication is nor-
mal to the open soul, and its highest conditions are
as strong in the sacred atmosphere of home and
friends as in far-oflf India. Spiritual thinkers of
whatever class or name may well realize that they
stand at the verge of a wide field, rich in promise
and comfort for those who have near and dear ones
who have passed to eternal spirit life.

An old Hindu Priest of Delhi, India, said to a
mother, heart-broken at the death of her child : "Be
comforted ; it is only a separation — ^a separation and
not a parting for you. The dead are not even ab-
sent ; they are simply invisible to those whose Occult
Powers or Inner Sight have not been developed.
Every time you think intensely of your baby boy he
will be attracted to you." This learned man would
say to his friends : "We do not die altogether ; our
individuality survives us, and while I am talking to
you I know for certain that all around me are the
Souls of my friends and Astral Guides, who assist
me in producing these phenomena which astonish
you all."

80X7L BEINGABNATIOK. 133

His last hours were in a sort of trance, in which
all his spirit friends came to him, and he looked for-
ward with exceeding joy, speaking in tender and
thoughtful affection to those around him, saying,
"I am now with my friends," meaning Astral Spirits.

And this is true with all who have died, and death,
instead of being sorrow and grief, is simply a beau-
tiful transition of the soul to a higher and purer life,
full of light and peace. This is death and is as
natural as any of God's laws. Thus it comes, light
and peace, but no fear, for as our bodily eyes grow
dim our spiritual sight is opened before us and we
behold visions of our ascended friends and loved
ones who have gone before us. We must be true
and fearless and fettered by no superstition, realiz-
ing that soul-knowledge is deeper than what the
outer senses alone can give, and be in that "spiritual
condition" of mind which makes the soul open to the
noble influences which sweep through the universe.
At death, or when the soul leaves the body and we
stand between the two worlds, light comes to us
from spirit life and our souls are lifted up in joy
and reverence.

One instance among others which has come under
the writer's notice, showing the experiences of the
last illness and death of a noble soul and Disciple
of Eastern Occultism. I attended his funeral and
learned from his daughter something of the last ill-

134 DEATH AND HINDU 8PIBITISM.

ness of her father, who was over a hundred years of
age, with no bodily disease, but only a weariness
which led him often to murmur, "How long, O
jgfuides, how long." Healthful in mind and serene in
soul he waited for the time when his soul would pass
to spirit life. For weeks before it came he had
visions of his ascended wife and son and of other
friends who had died. His beautiful daughter, sit-
ting at his bedside, would hear him quietly and
pleasantly carrying on conversations with those
whom none but the father could see. Occasionally
the daughter would ask, "Father, who are they?"
And always a rational and natural answer would
be given. This was no fancy of a fevered brain, no
excitement, but peace and cheerfulness. Thus came
his death, a beautiful transition, full of light and
peace, but no fear or terror. He had looked across
the border and his spiritual sight had been opened
wider as the bodily eyes grew dim. Such expe-
riences are frequent in India and are of the Hindus
rarely beautiful and instructive.

MIST RISING FROM THE DEAD BODY

Another Hindu girl, watching with her mother
by the deathbed of a dying and dearly beloved sis-
ter, says, when the end came, she distinctly saw a
delicate mist rising from the dead body. When they
asked the priest about it he said: "You saw life

SOUL BBINCABNATION. 135

dq)arting visibly from the physical form." This
was at Benares, India.

How many times have persons been present at
the beside of a dying friend. The eyes closed, the
last breath ceased and they thought their friend was
dead. Suddenly the eyes opened; light came back
to them; then a look of surprise, admiration, inex-
pressible; then it passed away. This phenomenon,
or the passing of soul, can be witnessed at the death-
led by any one who can properly induce the condi-
tion which is commonly called clairvoyance, or, in
other words, by the withdrawal of all the attention
from other objects and affairs and the concentra-
tion of thought and sympathy, as well as sight, on
your dying loved ones and friends. You can then
clearly see the separation of the spiritual body from
the dying physical form, as clairvoyance is finer and
farther reaching than the sight of your dull physical
eyes.

The spiritual body, which Paul speaks of, is the
soul you see passing out of the body at death. With
it your personality is not lost by bodily death, you
cannot be anything but yourselves after that event
any more than now. You shall not be formless and
tiisembodied shadows. You cannot die. Paul says :
"Although the outer man perish the inner is renewed
day by day*' suggesting the thought of an imperish-
able soul or spirit within the physical body.

CHAPTER VI.

GOD

*^Godis the power and cause of all things and
the Supreme Intelligence^

Many have said that God is infinity, but it should
be remembered that God is infinite in His Power
and Perfections of all things; but "infinity" is an
abstraction, and to state that God is infinity is to
ignorantly substitute the attribute of a thing for the
thing itself, and to define something unknown by
referring to some other thing equally unknown.

The proof of the existence of God (which the
writer desires to be understood as meaning the
Supreme Intelligence and First cause and Power of
all things) lies in the axiom which is applied in all
the sciences and arts of mankind, viz. : "That there
is no effect without cause." Seek ye out the cause
and whatever is not the work of man has its first
origin in God, and to prove to yourself the existence
of God you have only, to look around you on the
works of His creation. The worlds exist, therefore
they have a cause, and if you doubt the existence of
God you doubt that every effect has a cause, and are

138 -DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

assuming that the Great Universe, which lies directly
under the control of the Supreme Creator, has been
made from nothing.

Every human soul infers from intuition the exist-
ence of God, for from whence could the human soul
and mind of man derive this intuition if it had no
real foundation, and the direct inference to be drawn
from this Divine intuition is a caroUary of the
axiom. There is never effect without cause.

If our intuitive sense of the existence of God were
the result of education and ideas acquired by re-
ligious ideas and teachings how could this intuitive
sense be possessed by the savage? Again if the
intuition of the existence of a Supreme Being were
only the result of religious education it would not
be so universal, and would only exist like all other
superficial knowledge, in the minds of those who had
received the special education to which it would
be due.

To attribute the first formation of things to the
essential properties of matter would be to take the
effect for the first cause, for those properties are an
effect which must have a cause.

To attribute the first formation of things to a for-
tuitous combination of matter, in other words,
"Blind chance,'' is in itself another absurdity, for
who that is possessed of common sense can regard
chance as an intelligent agent, and, besides, what is

SOUL BEINCARNATION. 139

Blind Chance? Answered, Nothing! for the har-
mony which regulates the mechanism of the universe
can only result from combinations adopted in view
of predetermined ends, and thus, by its very nature,
reveals the existence of an intelligent Power. To
attribute the first formation of things to blind chance
is substituting ignorance for intelligence; for if
chance could be intelligence it would cease to be
chance.

SUPREME INTELLIGENCE

The proof that you have that the first cause of all
things is a Supreme intelligence superior to all other
intelligence lies in the old maxim, which says, "The
workman is known by his work," Gaze around you
and meditate upon the quality of the work, and from
its quality infer that of the workman. Every man
should be fair-minded enough to judge the quality
and power of an intelligence by its creations ; and as
no human being could create that which is produced
by God, it is evident that the first cause must be an
intelligence paramount to man, and whatever may
be the prodigies accomplished by human intelligence
that intelligence itself must have a cause, and the
greater must be the cause of which it is the effect,
and it may be accepted as an absolute fact by man-
kind, of every cult and creed that it is God, the great
Supreme Power and intelligence, that is the first

140 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

cause of all things, whatever the name by which
mankind chooses to designate it.
y Again the very nature and. inferiority oi the
human intelligence renders it impossible for man to
comprehend the essential nature of God. In the
infancy of the himian race man often confounds the
Creator with the creature, and attributes to the t

former the imperfections of the latter; but in pro-
portion as man's moral sense becomes developed his
thoughts penetrate further into the secret depths of
nature and he is able to form to himself a more just
and more natural idea of God, although his indi-
vidual idea of the Supreme Being will always be
imperfect and incomplete unless he develops his
inner or spiritual sight, because he will never per-
ceive spiritual works or things with his poor physical
eyes, and only by spiritual development will he ever
fully realize the essential nature and perfections of
God, and his comprehension of them will increase
in proportion as he raises himself above material-
ism ; then he will obtain knowledge through the ex-
ercise of his Occult faculties. Every person should
understand that there are things in the universe that
transcend the intelligence of the most intelligent
man, and for which his language, limited as it is to i

his ideas and sensations, has no intelligent expres-
sion. Man's reason tells him that God must possess
those perfections in the Supreme Degree ; for, if one

SOUL REINCARNATION. Ul

of them were deficient or were not possessed by him
in an infinite degree, He would not be superior to
all and able to govern and guide a man, and con-
sequently would not be God. In order to be able to
provide and guide man God must undergo no vicis-
sitions of which man's imagination can conceive.
The infallible and providential wisdom of the Divine
laws is revealed as clearly in the smallest things as
in the greatest ; and this wisdom renders it impossi-
ble for the intelligent person to doubt his existence,
justice or His goodness. y

No human soul can doubt the existence of God
because his intuition tells him better, and this is one
essential point, but do not dare or seek to go beyond
it, for if you do you will lose yourself in a labyrinth
which for ybu will be without issue. This will not
make you any better, but will rather tend to add to
your pride, by causing you to imagine that you know
something without proper spiritual development,
while, in reality, you would know nothing. Put
aside the teachings of materialism; you have many
important spiritual things to concern yourself with.
Study your own imperfections that you may get rid
of them. This will be far more useful to you in
understanding spiritual powers than anything else.

The dictates of man's own reason will tell him
that these facts are true, and if he reflects on teach-
ings contrary to them he will have no difficulty in
detecting their absurdity and will not oppose God.

CHAPTER VIL

SOUL AND BODY

Soul and body become united at the very moment
of conception, and is completed at the time of birth.
Before conception a given entity or spirit is pre-
ordained to become reincarnated in a body. At the
moment of conception the spirit designated to in-
habit a given body becomes united to said body by a
fluidic element, which becomes closer and denser
up to the moment of birth; the faint cry of the
infant at birth announces and is the alarm that the
entity is now to be numbered among the living on
the earth plane. The union between a spirit or

entity with its future body at the moment of con-
ception is definitive.

No other entity could replace the one designated

for the body. The strands that unite a spirit and its

fluidic body are at first very weak and easily broken

and could be severed by the spirit or a number of

spirits if they so wish, and of course in this case

conception, although it had taken place, would not

materialize and the child would die; then this

144 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

spirit would inhabit another body; but death of
this kind is more times caused by imperfections of
matter. Many times such deaths are only intended
as a trial for parents. Whenever a spirit or entity
fails in reincarnating itself another existence is not
always immediately provided for it. Many spirits
after they become permanently united to an infant
body regret their conditions and may complain of
the life they are forced to undergo. The spirit, of
course, after it becomes united to its body has no
recollection that it became united to said body
through its own choice, consequently it cannot re-
gret a choice which it is not conscious of having
made. This is one of the keys and causes of so
many suicides, as you have many persons who be-
lieve that their burden in life is to heavy to bear and
that the only recourse is suicide. A spirit during
the interval between conception and birth has the
use of its faculties more or less, according to the
various periods of gestation; for it is not yet fully
incarnated in its new habitation or body, but only
attached to it. But from the instant of conception
concern begins to take possession of the entity, who
is now aware that the vital moment is near for it to
enter upon an earthly existence; its confusion and
concern becomes more pronounced until the moment
of birth. During the interval between conception
and birth the spirit that is to be reincarnated passes

^ SOUL REINCABNATION. 145

through a condition of concern that increases in
portion as the moment of birth approaches, the
knowledge of its past life and spiritual existence
becomes effaced, together with its remembrance of
all previous states and periods of existence, of which,
when once it has entered upon earth life, it is no
longer conscious of its past. But this memory will
come back to it slowly after it returns to Spirit Life
after death of its body. The Spirit at the moment
of birth does not recover the plentitude of its facul-
ties, as they become gradually developed with the
growth of its physical organs and Earth Life, for
it . becomes an entirely new existence ; it is even
forced to learn to make use of its new body. In time
certain ideas come back to it little by little, as a
dream will gradually come to the surface of your
memory. A complete union of spirit and body are
not definitely consummated until the birth has taken
place, and the foetus cannot be considered as having
a soul, as the spirit who is to inhabit it exists as it
were outside of it. Strictly speaking, therefore, it
has no soul, since the incarnation of the entity is
only in course of being effected, but is only attached
to the soul which is to have it The nature of intra-
uterine life is that of the plant which vegetates. The
foetus, however, lives with ve'getable and animal life,
to which the union of a soul with the child body at
birth adds spiritual life. There are many children

146 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

SO constituted that they cannot live. These births
are preordained and permitted as a trial, either for
the parents or for the spirit appointed to animate
the body. Again, there are among still-bom chil-
dren many who were never intended for the reincar-
nation of a spirit. That is to sav, the foetus has
never had the spirit assigned to it. The still-born
infant being simply a trial for the parents. The con-
sequence of abortion makes the existence of a spirit
on the earth plane null and void and must be com-
menced over again. Artificial abortion is a sin and
crime, no matter at what period of gestation it may
be produced, as every transgression of the law of
God is a crime. The mother, father or any other
person who commits an abortion, thereby taking the
earth life of an unborn child away, is necessarily a
criminal; for by so doing a soul is prevented from
undergoing the trials of which the body thus de-
stroyed has been the instrument. In case of the life
of a mother being in danger by the birth of a child
it is not a crime to sacrifice the body of the child in
order to save the mother, for it is better to sacrifice
the being whose existence on earth has not been be-
gun than the existence of the being or soul which
is not yet complete. The will and handiwork of
God should be respected by treating the fcetus with
the same respect that would be given to the body
of a child had it lived and died.

SOUL BEINCAENATION. 147

"GRAVES OF THE DEAD"

The soul is always affected by the remembrance
by those whom they loved and cared for during their
Earth Life, far more than the ordinary person has
any idea; for, if they are happy on earth, this re-
membrance adds to their happiness; if they
were unhappy or had great misfortune and
sorrow on earth it affords them much con-
solation to know that they are remembered by their
friends and loved ones after they have passed to
Spirit Life. Every Soul is attracted toward its
friends upon the earth by the return of the day
which in some countries, especially India, is con-
secrated to the memory of those who have passed to
Spirit Life, and they always make it a point to go
and mingle with those who on that day go to pray
beside the graves where their mortal remains are
interred, as every spirit or soul will readily answer
to the call of affectionate remembrance on that day,
as they do at any other time. Spirits ofttimes go to
the cemeteries when called there by the thoughts of
a loved one who may go to sorrow over their grave,
but no spirit will go to a cemetery for any other than
their friends. Upon spirits coming to these places,
if they were to render themselves visible to their
friends, their form and appearance would be the
same as during their Earth Life, Spirits who are
forgotten and whose graves no one ever visits, and

148 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

for whom no one has any affection, very seldom ever
visit their graves, because there is nothing to attract
or attach them to it Whenever a friend or loved
one visits the grave of the dead it is a sign given to
the spirit that he is not forgotten; but it is deep
prayer that sanctifies the action of the memories;
the place where it is offered is of little importance,
whether it be at home or in the cemetery. Whenever
head stones, monuments or statues are erected at the
graves of the dead their spirits are present at this
time and can witness these ceremonies with pleasure
and satisfaction, greatly to the envy of the more un-
fortunate in Spirit Life, but some spirits, of course,
attach less importance to the honors paid to them
than to the remembrance in which they are held

Some spirits desire to be buried in one place rather
than another. This, of course, is a sign of inferior-
ity on the part of a spirit that he should attribute
importance to a matter purely material. To an ele-
vated spirit one spot of earth is the same as another,
and he realizes that his soul will be united with
those whom he lovss, even though their bones are
separated; consequently it is unnecessary to bring
together the mortal remains of all members of a
family in the same burial lot, as this reunion is of
very little importance to spirits, but it is useful to
those whose remembrance of the spirits who have

SOUL BEINCAENATION. 149

gone before them is thus strengthened and rendered
more serious.

Every soul upon its return to spirit life is grati-
fied by the honors paid to its mortal remains. How-
ever, when a spirit has reached a certain degree of
advancement it becomes purified from the terrestrial
vanities, for it comprehends their futility. But ther^
are many spirits who, in the early periods of their
return to immortal life, take great pleasure in the
honors paid to their memory, or they are much dis-
turbed and concerned at finding themselves com-
pletely forgotten, for they still retain some of the
false ideas they held during their Earth Life. Many
spirits attend their own funeral, but in some cases,
without really understanding what is going on,
being, of course, still in that state of confusion that
always follows death. They, of course, feel more or
less flattered by the presence of a large number of
persons at their funeral. Especially so if it is pure
sentiment that has brought them together. Spirits
are mostly always present at the meeting of their
heirs, especially where there has been a will left for
the disposition of their property and earthly posses-
sions. Providence has so ordained it for the spirit's
own instruction and for the chastisement of selfish-
ness. The deceased is thus enabled to judge of the
worth of the many protestations of affection and
devotion addressed to them during their earth life;

150 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

their disappointment on witnessing the rapacity of
those who dispute the property they have left is often
very great ; however, the punishment of their greedy
heirs will fall to them in due time. The respect
which mankind, in all ages and among all people,
has always instinctively shown to the dead, is to be
attributed to an intuitive belief in a future state of
existence. The one, of coiu'se, is the natural con-
sequence of the other; for were it not for this be-
lief such respect would have neither object or mean-
ing. Two souls who have known and loved each
other upon the earth plane may meet and recognize
one another upon the Astral Plane. The attraction
resulting from the ties of a previous existence upon
the earth plane is often the cause of the most inti-
mate unions of a subsequent existence. It often
happens upon the earth plane that two persons are
attracted together by conditions which appear to be
merely fortuitous, but this is really due to the attrac-
tion exercised upon one another by two spirits who
are unconsciously seeking each other amidst the
crowds by whom they are surrounded. Two spirits
existing upon the Astral Plane who are in harmony
naturally seek one another, even if they have not
been previously acquainted with each other upon the
,. earth plane. The instinctive repulsion sometimes
/' excited in persons Who see each other for the first
time is due to the latent antipathy of their spirits.

SOUL BEINCAENATION. 151

who divine each other's nature and recognize one
another without the need of speaking together. This
instinctive antipathy of course cannot always be
taken as a sign of an evil nature on the part of one
or both of the parties who feel it, as two spirits are
not necessarily evil because they are not sjrmpathetic,
as this antipathy may have its origin from a want oiy/
similarity in their way of thinking. But in spirit
life as the soul ascends these degrees of difference
are effaced and their antipathy will disappear. On
the Astral Plane an evil spirit feels an antipathy
against any person who is able to judge and unmask
him. On meeting such a spirit for the first time
Ke knows that he will be disapproved by him, and his
repulsion changes into hatred or jealousy and in-
spires him with a desire of doing harm to the object
of his antipathy. A good spirit always feels repul-
sion for an eyil one, because it knows that it will
not be understood by it, and that they do not share
the same sentiments ; but, strong in his own super-
iority, he feels neither hatred nor jealousy toward
him and contents himself with avoiding and pitying
him.

CHAPTER VIII.

"DREAMS"

The human soul while on the Earth Plane
never rests like the body during sleep, for the soul
is never inactive. The bonds which unite it to the
body are relaxed during sleep, and as the body does
not then require the presence of a spirit or soul it
can travel through space. (This is sometimes
spoken of as propelling the Astral Body.) The
soul can now enter into more direct relation and
communication with the spirits of the Astral Plane.
You may ask how you can be able to ascertain the
fact of a spirit*s liberty during sleep. I will inform
you. Simply by dreams ; for you may be very sure
that, when the body is asleep the soul or spirit enjoys
the use of its Occult faculties, of which the outer
man or body is unconscious while awake. The soul
in this condition remembers the past and is able to
forsee the future. By acquiring more power it is
also able to enter into communication with other
spirits, either on the Earth or Astral Plane. Many
a person has often remarked that they have had a
horrible and strange dream, in fact a frightful

154 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

dream, without any likeness to reality. This is a
mistake, for a dream is often the remembrance of
places and things which you have seen in the past,
or a foresight of those which you will see in your
existence upon the Astral Plane at some future time,
or in this in the near future. Very few human souls
know little of anything of the commonest phenom-
ena of their life. They may fancy themselves to
be very learned, but they are easily puzzled by the
most ordinary thing. A small child may ask you
what do we do when we are asleep? What are
dreams? You have no knowledge of them and are
incapable of giving an intelligent reply. Sleep
affects a partial separation of the soul from the body.

WISE MEN OF THE EAST

During deep sleep the soul rests, for the time being,
in a state and condition in which it will be after
death. Those spirits who at death are promptly
freed from the physical body are those who during
their lives have had what may be called spiritual
sleep, as they, when asleep, mingle in the society
of other spirits superior to themselves. The soul
then can go about with them, conversing with them
and gaining instruction from them ; they even work,
in the spirit world, at undertakings, which, on dying,
they find already completed. So as I have instructed
you in the beginning of these writings you see how

SOUL REINCARNATION. 155

little death should be dreaded, since, according to
the paying of the Wise Men of the East, "You die
daily." What has been written above refers of
course to those souls who while inhabiting the body
have lived in an elevated degree of advancement.
The unlearned and common people and those not
advanced in Occult and spiritual teachings, after
their death, remain for many days in a state of con-
fusion and uncertainty of which you have no idea,
for during their sleep they have went into spirit
realms of lower rank than the earth, to which they
are drawn to by old affections, or by the attractions
of pleasures still baser than those to which they are
addicted while awake. During these visits they
gather ideas more vile, more ignoble and more devil-
ish than those which they possessed during their
working hours. Again, that which engenders sym-
pathy in the earthly life is nothing else than the fact
that you feel yourselyes on waking affectionately
attracted toward those with whom you have passed
many hours of happiness or pleasure. On the other
hand, the true explanation of the invincible anti-
pathies you sometimes feel for certain persons is also
to be found in the intuitive knowledge you have thus
acquired of the fact that those persons have a soul
unfit to mingle with you and you feel that you know
them without having previously seen them with your
bodily eyes. It is this same fact, moreover, that ex-

166 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

plains the indifference of some people for others ; for
there are many who do not care to make new friends
because they know that they have others in spirit life
by whom they are loved and cherished. And I g^ve
It unto you as a warning that dreams and sleep have
more influence in shaping your earth life than you
have any idea. For by the effect of sleep the soul
is always in connection with the spirits of the Astral
Plane ; again through the effects of sleep, incarnated
spirits are directly in connection with the spirit
world; and it is in consideration of this fact that
spirits of a high order consent, without much resist-
ance, to incarnate themselves among you. It has
been so willed that during their contact with vice
they may go forth and fortify themselves afresh at
the source of rectitude in order that they who have
come into your world to instruct others may not fall
into evil themselves. Reincarnated spirits always
sleep the sleep of peace and this sleep is the avenue
open for them by the great Creator that they may
pass through it to their friends in the spirit world.
This is their reward and recreation after labor, while
awaiting the great deliverance, the final liberation,
that will restore them to their true place in spirit life.
Dreams are the remembrance of what your soul has
experienced and seen during sleep. Many may re-
mark that they do not always dream. Because they
do not always remember what they have seen it is no

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 157

sign that the soul has not been active during sleep.
Dreams themselves do not always reflect the action
of your soul in its full development; for they are
often only the reflection of the confusion that accom-
panies your departure or your return back into the
body, mingled with a vague remembrance of what
you have done, or what has occupied your thoughts
in your waking state. Again, evil spirits, also, make
use of dreams to frighten and torment weak and
timid souls.

THE PRACTICAL STUDENT OF OCCULTISM

The practical student of Occultism (and what I
mean by this is an individual or soul who is sincere
in their desire to learn and become developed in an
Occult and spiritual way, for there is nothing but a
curse that will ever come out of the effort of a soul
that is not sincere in seeking after occult teach-
ings) will before long become developed so that he
can reason out any kind of a dream. The nature
of these dreams is one that has been given to every
ancient prophet and Hindu Priest. The dream I
allude to is one that is a remembrance of the soul's
experience while entirely free from the body. The
memory as it is of your second life, because you
people of the western world prefer to remark that
when death takes place you have lived one life, but
you should always recollect that you only live one

168 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

life, and that that life is eternal. It would be far
more sensible and intelligent upon your part to say
that you have experienced a section or a given part
of your existence. Every person should use great
care in distinguishing between the two kinds of
dreams that everyone is liable to have, for as re-
marked before in this chapter, there is one dream
that may be given by an evil spirit, the other is a kind
of a dream that is produced by the experience of the
soul in its future life. The true dream is a product
of the emancipation of the soul and is rendered
more real and active by the suspension of the
active life of relation to the earth plane. The soul
in this state will now enjoy a sort of clairvoyance
which extends to places at a great distance from it,
that that soul has never seen, even to other worlds.
This state of interior concentration of the soul, or
emancipation as it is generally termed in India, but
spoken of in this country as clairvoyancy, is also due
to the remembrance which retracts to our memory
the events that have occurred in our present exist-
ence or in our preceding existence. The strange-
ness of the surroundings of the soul when the Astral
Body is propelled and taken to worlds unknown, is
something that will be realized by their soul in this
condition. A failure to remember all of your dreams
is explained by the gaps resulting from the incom-
pleteness of your remembrance of what has appeared

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 159

to you and what you have experienced while in a
deep sleep. This incompleteness is similar to that
of a story where whole sentences or parts of it have
been dropped or forgotten by chance, and its remain-
ing parts have been thrown together at random and
have lost all intelligent meaning. The reason why
many do not remember their dreams is that what
they call sleep is only the repose of the body for the
spirit and soul is always active and in motion. The
soul during sleep again recovers its liberty and can
enter into communication with those who are dear
to it, either on the Earth Plane or upon the Astral
Plane, and this is the reason why so many persons
dream that they have been with and had certain ex-
periences with people who are dead. A person will
sometimes dream that they have been with a soul
which has died, and experienced the same suffering
that the soul did while on earth, but in reality they
have been in the society of those souls and mingled
with them on the Astral Plane, while they them-
selves thought they were only sound asleep. The
physical or outward bodily senses are heavy and
gross, and a dream cannot always be remembered by
them. Consequently it is very difficult for these
senses to retain upon waking the wanderings and
experiences of the soul while said senses have been
asleep, because these experiences have not been re-

160 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

ceived by the soul through the outward or bodily
organs.

No dream is really an indication of the sense at-
tributed to it by many of the so-called fortune tell-
ers ; but it is not foolish to believe that a certain kind
of a dream is the sign of a certain event which is
about to happen. But they are indications in this
sense — ^viz., that they present images which are real
for the spirit, though they may have nothing to do
with what takes place in his present corporeal life.
Dreams are also, in many cases, as I have said, a re-
membrance ; they may also be sometimes a presenti-
ment of the future, if permitted by God, or the sight
of something which is taking place at the time in
some other place to which the soul has transported
itself. Have you not many instances proving that
persons may appear to their relatives and friends in
dreams, and give them notice of what is happening
to them? What are apparitions, if not the soul or
spirit of persons who come to communicate with
you ? When you acquire the certainty that what you
saw has really taken place, is it not a proof that it
was no freak of your imagination, especially if what
you saw were something which you had not thought
of when you were awake ?

Those things may take place in the experience of
the spirit, though not in that of the body ; that is to
say, that the Soul sees what it wishes to see because

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 161

it goes to find it. You must not forget that, during
sleep, the spirit is always more or less under the
influence of matter; that, consequently, it is never
completely free from terrestrial ideas, and that the
objects of its waking thoughts may therefore g^ve to
its dreams the appearance of what it desires or
of what it fears, thus producing what may be prop-
erly termed an effect of the imagination. When the
mind is much engaged with any idea, it is apt to
connect everything it sees with that idea.

You may say that in a dream, we see persons who
are well known to us doing things which they are
not in any way thinking of, is it not a mere effect of
the imagination ?

Of which they are not thinking? How do you
know that it is so? Their spirit may come to visit
yours, as yours may go to visit theirs; and you do
not always know, in your waking state, what. they
may be thmking of. And besides, you often, in your
dreams, apply to persons whom you know, and ac-
cording to your own desires, impress or influence
them. Is it necessary to the emancipation of the soul
that the sleep of the body should be complete ?

The soul recovers its liberty as soon as the senses
become torpid. It takes advantage, in order to
emancipate itself, of every moment of respite left it
by the body. As soon as there occurs any prostra-
tion of the vital forces, the spirit disengages itself

162 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

from the body, and the feebler the body, the freer
is the soul. For even in the dozing state or a mere
dulling of the outward senses the same phenomena
will be experienced. Again, many times a person
will hear as it were within themselves words dis-
tinctly pronounced or spoken, still having no mean-
ing or connection whatever with the subject which
they are thinking. Indeed you may often hear
words and entire sentences, especially so when the
outward or physical senses become quiet. This is an
impression or transmission of the utterance of a
spirit who wishes to communicate with you. Again
when only half asleep with your eyes closed you see
distinct images or figures around you ; these are dis-
embodied spirits. There are many times when a per-
son is half-asleep that they have superior ideas pass
through their mind in relation to some business or
project, but which despite all their efforts to recall
them are effaced from their memory when waking.
This is the result of the freedom that the soul has
enjoyed during its emancipation from the body
when it can use the proper faculty during its time
of liberty from the bo8y to become advised and
counseled by the spirits of the Astral Plane.

SPIRIT COUNSEL AND ADVICE

It may be remarked, where is the use of this
counsel and advice since we do not remember it after

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 163

we have awakened, or how can we profit by it; but
it should be remembered that this advice comes from
the spirits of the Astral Plane and although the body
or outward man may forget, the spirits do not, and
they will continue at the proper time to give these
ideas, advice and counsel to you and you will realize
it as coming to you some time in the future as an
inspiration. It is a well known fact that many per-
sons have had a presentment of their death, and even
a clear foreknowledge of it. This counsel and knowl-
edge has been given to them by Astral Spirits and
it is thus that some persons are enabled to foresee
the time of their death or the death of another with
perfect exactness. The reason why the physical
body feels fatigued or a person may sometimes feel
tired and nervous after waking from sleep, is be-
cause the spirit, during its emancipation, reacts upon
the body in the same manner that you may attach or
fasten a kite or balloon to a post, the post is shaken
and affected by the movements of the balloon or
kite, so it is that the experiences or activity of the
soul reacts to the body, and may leave it in a fa-
tigued and nervous condition, and in this explana-
tion will be found the reason why many people are
never profited by sleep. This emancipation or tour-
ing of the soul during sleep proves that every human
being leads two lives, that is, his relation to the earth
plane, which is exterior, and the Occult relation

164 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

of the soul to Spirit realms or the Astral Plane.
Practically speaking, of course this does not in itself
constitute two lives, but rather two phases of one
and the same life, for no person can lead a double
life. Many persons who are acquainted with one
another,, visit one another in this Spiritual or Occult
way while asleep. This act of visiting during sleep
of friends, relatives, and acquaintances is extremely
frequent, and there is scarcely a person who does not
experience some phenomena almost every night, and
the intuition or impression of it usually remains with
them after they awaken, and is often the origin of
certain ideas which afterward occur to them as it
were, spontaneously without their being able to ac-
count for it. In other words, you may have a cer-
tain impression, a certain sympathy, or a decided
antipathy for a person, that you yourself, that is
the outward man, will not be able to account for, but
in reality you have obtained this knowledge or im-
jpression through spirit intercourse which has been
carried on during your sleep. A person can insure
the visit of a spirit to him during his sleep by an
exertion of his will, by simply literally deciding to
himself upon going to sleep, that he will go and meet
such and such a person in spirit life and consult or
seek his advice regarding a certain matter or thing. If
the person who decides to do this is firm and stead-
fast of mind, after he has gone to sleep his spirit will

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 165

pass to the Astral Plane, but unless he is of a firm
and steadfast mind, his spirit is often far from fol-
lowing out the plan which has been resolved upon
by the outward man, as thoughts and ideas of the
outward senses do not always interest the spirit or
soul when it becomes clairvoyant. There are many
times that the same idea or the discovery of a cer-
tain thing, of tentimes suggests itself at a certain time
to different persons, although they may be at a
great distance from one another, for during sleep
spirits or souls communicate with one another and
thus spirits or souls who are still in the body upon the
earth plane awaken and remember what they have
seen, heard and learned from spirit life. It is thus
that several persons may have identical ideas at the
same time of the same thing, for in this way one
spirit on the Astral Plane may often reveal to souls
in the body many things without their being aware
of it, as the spirits upon the Astral Plane are able
to form an idea of the object of our meditation be-
fore we pass to sleep. After the spirit or soul passes
to the Astral Plane it is no longer encumbered with
the physical body and can radiate wherever it pleases
in any direction, and the spirit can then hold com-
munication with other spirits with whom it is in
sympathy, and it can also, as written above, com-
municate with other souls while they are still an
inhabitant of the body. There is also different souls

166 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

dwelling on the earth and on the Astral Plane, be-
tween which communication is so keen and
clear that it enables two persons or spirits to under-
stand each other without having any need of human
speech, and it may be well said that they speak the
language of spirits.

OCCULT AUROS AND ASTRAL WAVES

During the act of Dreaming, the fragments of
Mental Impressions and Images float about, like
the motes that dance in the sunbeams to the Central
Sun. Touching each other, they blend and adhere
to each other, thereby forming as it were, a great
system of Mental Telepathy. During sleep these
Astral Waves of thought and Mental Impressions,
pass and flow from soul to soul, with wonderful
accuracy and exactness, for these Mental and Oc-
cult Currents of thought, dominate over the physical
sense organs. The regular outward organs of
thought are for the time suspended. Sensation and
physical perception, memory, reflection, desire and
action no longer succeed each other in the manner
of the waking state. When the mind is
especially sensitive and passive, it becomes so
clear that impressions of ideas or, of facts,
and also Spirit Communications may be re-
ceived from the Souls of the Astral Plane, or from
minds distant, still inhabiting the body, or even from

SOUL REINCABNATION. 167

those in our immediate surroundings. This Occult
Auro or Astral Fluid is even finer than the ordinary

sunlight, hence, it is impossible to represent its ex-
treme beauty and delicacy, in a painting or an en-
graving, and it is only to be seen by the sensitive
Medium or Clairvoyant under a decidedly increas-
ing intensity of common vision, or at such times as
the rods and cones of the eye become more tense
under some forms of mental excitement, when con-
sequently, they vibrate to the fine Occult Auros and
Astral Waves. This Auro will then appear as a soft,
diffused light around the head and form of an in-
dividual, or it may shoot out in glowing bands or
it may form irridescent clouds at a greater or less
distance from him. This Auro and Astral Force
often appears like a crown of Spiritual Brightness,
decorated with flaming jewels. When a person is
greatly excited and active, this Aurora will be' bright
and intense, flashing up vividly. This is sometimes
expressed by saying that your mind feels bright. A
public speaker whose soul and mind is gjeatly ex-
cited, is said to make a brilliant effort. Those who
use these terms regard them simply as figures of
speech, little dreaming that in Occult Science it will
be proved that they were true in the most literal
sense. During sickness this Auro is thrown off
from the body of the person who is dull and ob-
scure, for during sickness the mind is dull and the

168 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

thought slow. A refined and Spiritually developed
person will throw off an Auro of clear light blue
color. But the Auro of one of the opposite nature,
in which sensuality predominates, will be of a dull
red and foul and impure in its nature. When a
person is enlightened, he increases the quality and
quantity of this Astral Force. To the eye of the
sensitive, or the Clairvoyant, these Astral Auros
appear like an illuminous force of sunlight, radiat-
ing from the body of an individual as only Astral
Waves give out a light that is of infinite softness.
This is sometimes spoken of as the sun of righteous-
ness. A good Auro is the reward of intellectual cul-
ture, refined and Spiritual excellence. Every object
radiates Astral Forces which impress an image of
itself upon the soul of the Clairvoyant and also upon
surrounding objects, for if you lay a key or ring
upon a' smooth plate of steel for a short time, and
then remove it, the image of the key or ring may
be evoked by heating the plate. This may be done
years after the contact, so, whether consciously or
not, the human mind and soul and the objects of the
Universe are thus continually writing their history
in these marvelous pictures. By coming in con-
tact with a person or an object the sensitive or
Clairvoyant may perceive and describe the images
and impressions they have received and retained.
For example, by holding a manuscript letter in gen-

SOUL EEINCARNATION. 169

tie contact with the forehead or the hand, the per-
sonal appearance and even the thoughts of the writer
at the time of writing may be faithfully described.
A fossil plant, or animal examined in this way, gives
up a faithful picture of its ancient surroundings, in
pre-historic ages. In the experiments and Occult
Work of the Hindus, this is done again and again.
Those acts of contact which express the various
forms of affection prove the reality of this Spiritual
Auro beyond all possibility of a doubt. All animals
with a distinct nervous system, from the insignificant
worm up to man, express their sexual, parental, filial
or friendly affection, by the contact of caressing.
Among human beings alone, there are millions of
examples where this fact is fully illustrated daily.
And only one explanation is possible. There must be'
some actual force passing from one living being to
another in these acts of caressing. This soul and
Astral Force is a vital part to everyone and its pro-
jection and reception in this way is just as real as
the reception of force through the food we eat ; thus
parental, filial, fraternal and sex-love are connected
with the lips and with the bosom ; hence, kissing or
caressing brings out this Auro or force which ex-
presses these affections.

Through this radiating force one person actually
imparts something of his being to another person
and to every being which he touches, or is brought

170 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

in contact with, and, in turn, he constantly receives
from the accumulated force left by others, and it is
by the means of these influences, or Auro, which is
invisible to the physical eye of man, that a dog is able
to follow his Master or identify him by a garment
that he has worn. In any locality where a large num-
ber of wise, good and refined people exist, there will
be an Auro thrown out and radiated from one to the
other, that will last for many years. Such a refined
atmosphere or Auro is highly favorable to clearness
of thought, social and spirtual harmony. It is a part
of human destiny to surround a given point in this
way with the living Auro of refinement, Spiritual
Truth and Love. This law should teach man that
he is responsible to his fellow being for every
thought, and feeling which he entertains as well as
for every action which he performs. These silent
Occult Auros and Astral waves vibrate from soul
to soul, whether the soul inhabits the Spirit World
or whether it still retains its habitation in the physi-
cal body. All human souls are united by an insep-
arable link of a composite Spiritual and Occult Force
and when the Hindu tells you that there is a great
Occult Antiquity and Sympathy existing between
all things in the Universe he speaks the truth.

172 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

"INDIA, THE LAND OF OCCULTISM."

In this broad land, the gathered
Occult thought of centuries is
Presented in all its varied acceptations.
The Disciple needs must reap superabundant
Harvest, perhaps the most, from those
Who differ farthest; as I have heard.
Sometimes extremes, by meeting,
But prove they have a circle been completing.

Dr. de Laurence.

CHAPTER IX.

DEATH TRANCE

During the state of Death Trance, an individual
always sees, and hears what is taking place around
him, but at the same time he is unable to manifest
himself through the outward organs, but it is not
through the bodily senses that he has received the
impressions of his earthly environments, for they are
received by and through the Occult faculties of the
soul, and the reason why the individual cannot ex-
press himself is because the state of his body pre-
vents him from doing so, and this peculiar state of
the physical body and its organs demonstrates that
man consists of something more than a material
body, for right here we have an illustration of the
body and its organs that no longer work, for they are
completely inactive, yet the spirit and soul has per-
fect action and great freedom, also wonderful intel-
ligence. The human soul in this peculiar state of
lethargy or coma can entirely separate itself from
the physical body so as to give the latter all the
outward appearances of death, and afterwards come
back and inhabit it ; for while in this state the body

174 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

itself is not dead as it still continues to accomplish
its functions and coagulation will not take place in
the circulatory system. The body's vital powers, as
in chrysalis, are not annihilated and the spirit will
remain connected with the physical body as long as
it remains alive, and the body will remain alive as
long as the spirit and soul is linked or connected
with it, and it is only when this strand is snapped
asunder, that death and disaggregation of the bodily
organs take place, it is then that the separation of the
soul and body, soul transition and death, as it is
termed in this country, takes place. After this the
spirit can never come back into the body, and in any
case where one has apparently died comes back to life
again, it is because the strand which unites body and
soul has not been broken, or in other words, the
process of death has not been entirely consummated.
It is also possible by means of timely spiritual help
to strengthen these ties which were about ready to
part, and to give back life to a person who but for
this help would have died. Death Trance precedes
from the temporary loss of sensibility, power and
motion, which is psychologically explained in this
chapter. In the condition of Death Trance the sup-
pression of the vital powers is complete and gives to
the body all the appearances of death, but in cata-
lepsy this suppression is localized and may affect the
whole or less extensive portion of the body, while

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 176

leaving the intdHgence free to manifest itself.
Lethargy or coma is perfectly natural, that is to say,
that it has its origin in natural law. Catalepsy is,
strictly speaking, a ccmdition which has been pro-
duced spontaneously, and may be produced and dis-
sipated by artificial means, such as hypnotism, etc.

The Lethargic state or Death Trance Is an inde- \
pendent condition or Coma-Somnolentun state which
is characterized by the diminution of the powers of
voluntary motion, and from which it is very diffi-
cult and at times impossible to arouse the patient;
for having once passed into this comatose state he
ceases to be "en rapport" with those around him and
having passed completely from his physician. This
condition of Coma when induced by hypnotism is
the result of the operator permitting his subject to
remain inactive too long after he has induced som-
nambulism. This is an extremely dangerous state,
and the operator should guard against it by keeping
his subject interested and doing something. He v^
should be kept engaged and active by inducing vari-
ous delusions. This employs his imagination and
keeps him conscious of his environments and sus-
ceptible to suggestion; but if left to himself and
preoccupied his eyes will assume the trance-like or
vacant state and he is very liable to pass into the
Death Trance or State of Coma, If the hypnotist
has more than one subject under control at the same

176 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

time he should be very careful to keep them all busy
by doing something to attract their attention, aaid if
he cannot use them all at once he should awaken

/ some of them before they pass into this apparently
lifeless condition.

There is no doubt that many people have been
in this state of Coma when the autopsy has been per-
formed upon their supposed dead body, and their
heart and other vitals will give unmistakable signs

\ of life during the autopsy if in this state.

This strange psychical condition of profound
trance or Lethargy, which so accurately counterfeits
and resembles death that living interments are often
made, is a form of suspended animation, there being
an absolute suspension of the heart and lung action
attending the induction of this profound degree of
lethargic sleep. This phenomenon of suspended
functions is characterized by an absence of bodily
warmth; accompanied by all the ordinary indications
and usual evidences of departed life, and giving the

>/ body every appearance of a corpse. The duration
of' this death-trance before the spirit or soul takes
its final leave and passes from the body, is very in-
definite, being governed by conditions decidedly com-
plex in character and assuming various aspects, de-
termined by the different mental and physical phases
with which it is associated. There can be little
doubt but that there are many persons buried alive

SOUL REINCABNATION. 177

while in this comatose state. Its duration being in-
definite and the characteristics similar to those of
death, the attending physician, if he has no knowl-
edge of medical Psychology or Spiritism, will, after
administering the usual stimulants and means of
provoking reaction (and these fail of course) unhes-
itatingly pronounce the patient dead and the unfor-
tunate being is placed in his coffin, where he regains
consciousness and dies a horrible death, suffering
agony of suffocation or dies under the knife on a
dissecting table.

LIVING INTERMENT

A case of living interment which came under the
author's notice in India was that of a young Hindu
of low caste, about thirty years of age, who took an
Indian drug called Cannabis Indica or Indian Can-
nobis (made from the plant Cannabis Sativa), with
suicidal intent. He was to all appearances dead
when found by relatives. An English physician was
called and after making the usual examination and
tests in such cases, pronounced the young man
dead. His funeral services were held three
days later; the coffin containing the supposed
corpse being placed in a receiving cave. At the ex-
piration of the ten days, the time set for burial,
the coffin was opened by the attendant in order
that the relatives might have a last look at their

178 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

dead. A horrible sight met their gaze — ^a sight
that filled their hearts with horror and unut-
terable grief. The young man had turned half over
upon his left side, while in his right hand, clenched
in death's agony, was found fragments of hair which
had been torn from his head. The cloth around his
neck also showed evidence of his attempt to tear it

away during the struggle he had made against death.

In these cases of profound trance or lethargy nei-
ther coagulation nor decomposition set in; even
though its duration be from three to six months.
And strange as it may seem to the uninformed, the
soul continues its existence within the body and life
is sustained without air ; but once the patient is re-
/ vived and resumes his normal condition he must
have air to breathe or he will die.

This death trance or comatose state can be in-
duced by voluntary effort or Auto-Suggestion.
While in this conditiorf and apparently unconscious
and unaffected by any of the stimulants which or-
dinarily induce reaction, the patient really does ap-
pear corpse-like, and it is well for the medical man,
when called in a case of death trance, suspected to be
either of a hypnotic or hysterical or drug origin, to
understand something of this strange psychical con-
dition, that he may know the best course to adopt.*

* Instructions for producing reaction will be found
in Dr. de Laurence^s celebrated work entitled
"Medical Hypnosis," Physicians' Edition,

SOUL REINCARNATION. 179

In the deep condition of death trance the inde-
pendence of the soul is more decided, as its functions
are more developed, than during the sleeping state,
and it has preceptions that it has not during sleep.
For in trance the soul is entirely free from any con-
nection with matter or the material organs. This
state is deeper than catalepsy or lethargy and the
soul is no longer receptive to external impressions.
The death trance condition may occur during deep
sleep, for then the spirit is able to absent itself from
the body which has been given up to that repose and
rest that is indispensable to the physical body.
Whenever this trance state occurs it is because the
spirit or soul of the sleeper, intent upon doing some-
thing or other that requires the aid of the body,
makes use of it in a manner analogous to that which
spirits make use of a table, or other material objects,
in producing the phenomena of physical manifesta-
tions, or of a human hand, in giving written com-
munications. In the dreams of which a man is con-
scious, his organs, including those of memory, are
beginning to awaken ; and, as they only receive and
transmit to the spirit imperfectly the impressions
made on them by exterior objects or action, the
spirit, who is then in the state of repose, only per-
ceives these impressions through confused and often
disconnected sensations, which, in many cases, are
still further confused by being mingled with vague

180 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

remembrances of his present life and anterior ex-
istences. Jt is easy, therefore, to understand why
somnambulists do not remember their visions, and
why the greater number of the dreams you remem-
ber have no rational meaning. I say the greater
number, for it sometimes happens that dreams are
the consequence of a precise remembrance of events
that have occurred in one of your former lives, or
even a sort of intuition of the future.

The only difference between hypnotic trance and
state of death trance is that the hypnotic trance is
produced artificially. The so-called magnetic fluid
or hypnotic force is a vital auro or universal fluid
and all conditions of clairvoyance, second sight, me-
diumship, mind reading, somnambulism, etc., are
pure soul sight. The reason why soul-sight or
clairvoyance can see through opaque bodies is that
opaque bodies only become such to the gross or phys-
ical organs as matter is not an obstacle for the spirit
of soul, for it can pass and see freely through it.
A person who has soul-sight or clairvoyance may
often tell you that he sees through his forehead or
some part of his body, and you living a pure mate-
rial existence may not understand that this clair-
voyance or soul-sight is both independent and su-
perior to the outward or physical organs of sight
and the soul left to itself readily understands that
it can see into every part of his own body or another

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 181

body, that is to say, that it can see its own body in-
dependent of its own body.

SOUL SIGHT

Astral Spirits of low degree do not see and com-
prehend everything, for, as you know, they still sfiare
their errors and their prejudices; and, in the next
place, as long as they remain more or less attached
to matter, they have not the use of all their spirit-
faculties. God has given the faculty of clairvoyance
to man for serious and useful purpose, and not to
inform him of what it is not permitted for him to
know; and this is why somnambulists do not know
everything.

You may wonder what is the source of the som-
nambulist's innate ideas, and how can he speak cor-
rectly of things of which he is ignorant in his wak-
ing state, and which are even above his intellectual
capacity?

A somnambulist may possess more knowledge
than you give him credit for ; but this knowledge is
latent in his waking state, because in his waking
state he is not able to remember all he knows as a
spirit. But, in point of fact, what is he? Like all
of us, he is a spirit who has been incarnated in mat-
ter for the accomplishment of his mission, and in
going into the somnambulic state or death trance
rouses him from the lethargy of incarnation. I have

182 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

repeatedly told you that you live many times. It is
changing of your existences that causes man to lose
sight, in a new connection with matter, of what he
may have known in a preceding one. On entering
into this state, which in India is called a Soul Sight,
he recalls what he has formerly known, but not al-
ways with completeness. He knows, but he cannot
tell whence he derives his knowledge, nor in what
way he possesses it. The trance over, his reminis-
cences fade from his consciousness, and he re-enters
the obscurity of corporeal life.

Experience shows that somnambulists also receive
communications from other spirits, who tell them
what they are to say, and supply them with what is
lacking on their part. This supplementing of their
insufficiency is often and especially witnessed in
medical consultations; the spirit of the clairvoyant
seeing the malady, and another spirit indicating the
remedy required. This double action is often patent
to bystanders, and is also frequently revealed by such
expressions on the part of the somnambulist as, "I
am told to say," or "I am forbidden to say," etc.
In the latter case, it is always dangerous to persist
in the effort to obtain a revelation refused by the
clairvoyant, because, by doing so we open the door
to frivolous and unscrupulous spirits, who prate
about everything without any regard to veracity.

The Human Soul transports itself during death

* ■

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 183

trance the same as it does during sleep to a greater
or less degree of somnambulic clairvoyancy, not de-
pending so much upon the physical organization of
an individual as the spiritual condition of a soul.
Nevertheless there are certain physical qualities
which allow the soul to separate itself more easily
from the body. The Occult faculties enjoyed by the
soul during the trance are the same as though in
action and possessed by the soul or spirit after death,
that is to say they are the same only up to a given
point, for you must take into consideration the in-
fluence of the physical body to which the soul is
attached during earth life. The extent to which a
person who is clairvoyant, can see disembodied spir-
its depends on the nature and degree of their devel-
opment. The greater number of them see other
spirits perfectly well, but they do not always recog-
nize them at once as being such, and thus mistake
them for corporeal beings; a mistake that if often
made by somnambulists, and especially by those
among them who know nothing of spiritism. Not
understanding anything of the essence of spirits,
they are astonished at seeing them in human form,
and suppose them to be living persons.

The same effect is produced at the moment of
death in the consciousness of those who suppose
themselves to be still living. Nothing about them
appears to them to be changed. The spirits around

184 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

them seem to have bodies like theirs, and they take
the appearance of their own body to be that of a real
body of flesh. Whenever the soul propels the Astral
Body away in space the somnambulist feels in his
body the sensation of heat or cold of the place where
the Astral Body has been propelled even though very
far distant from his body. The reason of this is
that his soul has not entirely quitted his body, to
which it is still attached by the link which unites
them together; it is this link that is the conductor
of sensation. When two persons in two different
cities correspond with each other by electricity, it
is the electricity that constitutes the link between
their thoughts and enables them to communicate
with one another as though they were close together.
The human soul which upon earth has been psychic
or clairvoyant is greatly influenced by the use he
has made of his powers while on earth. The same
holds good with the good or bad use that is made
of all the faculties that mankind is possessed of . The
essential difference between deep sleep and the trance
condition is that trance is a deeper state. It is then
that the soul is more at liberty and independent of
the body. The soul can now enter into high spirit-
ual realms and communicate with the spirits dwell-
ing there. There are also many times when a me-
dium in a trance state expresses a desire to leave the
physical body or to propel their Astral Body away

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 185

in space. This desire is sincere and the request will
depend upon the depth of the spirit's purification, for
it is then in a condition to see whether its future ex-
istence will be superior to its present life. If this
is so the soul may make an effort to remain out of
the body entirely. In this case death would take
place and the only way to call the soul back into the
body is to bring to his mind everything that will
attract and attach him to earth life by making him
see that if he remains out of the body he will make
use of the most effectual means of preventing his
remaining in a happy state in spirit life. Much care
should be given to the information received by a per-
son in the trance state for they may express what
they have seen or heard in any language accom-
modated to their prejudice or own individual ideas
in which they have been brought up, thinking of
course that will be better understood in this way;
as they are most likely to make an error. Again of
course they are very likely to be mistaken, especially
when due effort is made to penetrate that which is to
remain a mystery to man while he inhabits the body,
and the very moment that he does this he becomes
the prey and sport of evil designing and deceiving
spirits who will take advantage of him, overwhelm-
ing him with their false statements. Every person
should study this phenomenon and they will find by
deep and serious meditation, over the same, the solu-

186 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

tion of more than one Occult Mystery which their
physical senses have sought in vain to solve. The
student who will study these things sincerely and
justly, without prejudice or preconceived ideas, will
be greatly benefited thereby. Second-sight is a
Power which when once developed becomes perma-
nent, that is to say, the faculty which gives the Oc-
cult Power, becomes permanent.

SECOND SIGHT

Second-sight usually occurs spontaneously. The
will nevertheless often plays an important part in
producing this phenomenon. Take, for example, the
persons who are called fortune tellers — and some
of them really have that power — and you will find
that action of their will helps them to this Second-
Sight and to what you call vision. Clairvoyance or
second-sight is susceptible of being developed by cer-
tain Hindu Occult Exercises which will be given
later on in this volume. Sincere effort and applica-
tion always leads to progress in Occult Powers as in,
anything else and the veil that hides Occult and
Spirit Mystery will readily become transparent to
the sincere student. The reason why clairvoyancy
is hereditary in certain people is because of the de-
velopment of these faculties by application and edu-
cation in those who have transmitted it from one
generation to another. This applies to the Hindus

SOUL REINCARNATION. 187

more than to any other race of people. It is true that \
circumstances develop second-sight. Illness, the ap-
proach of danger, any great commotion may develop
it. The body is sometimes in a state which allows
of the spirit's seeing what cannot be seen with the
physical eye. In times of great excitement and of
calamity, powerful emotions, all the causes, in short,
which excite the soul may develop second-sight It
would seem as though Providence gave us when in
the presence of danger, the means of escaping it.
All creeds and all people subjected to persecution
have offered numerous instances of this fact. Clair-
voyants do, and can, give foreknowledge of future
events; they may also give presentiments of great
danger, for there are many degrees in this faculty,
and the same person may possess all those degrees,
as he may possess only some of them. The phe-"
nomena of natural somnambulism occur, spontane-
ously, and independently of any known external
cause; not only in persons endowed with a special
organization or gift, for clairvoyancy may be pro-
duced by any one having a knowledge of Eastern
Occultism. The only difference between the state
designated as self-induced somnambulism, and nat-
ural somnambulism is, that the one is produced by
development, while the other is spontaneous.

188 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

NATURAL SOMNAMBULISM

Natural somnambulism is a notorious fact, the
reality of which few now dispute, notwithstanding
the marvelous character of the phenomena it pre-
sents. Why then, should self-induced somnambulism
be regarded as more extraordinary or incredible,
simply because it is produced by study and applica-
tion like so many other things ? It has been abused
by charlatans, some persons will reply ; but that fact
only affords an additional reason for not leaving it in
their hands. When science shall have taken posses-
sion of it, charlatanism will have much less credit
with the masses ; but, meanwhile, as somnambulism,
both natural and artificial, is a fact, and as a fact
cannot be argued down, it is making its way, despite
the ill-will of its adversaries, and obtaining a footing
even in the temple of western science, which it is
entering by many side-doors, instead of entering by
the principal one. Its right to be there, ere long,
will be fully recognized. For somnambulism is more
than a physical phenomenon ; it is a light thrown on
the subject of psychology; it is a state in which you
can study the soul, because the soul shows itself, so
to say, without covering. Now, one of the phe-
nomena which characterizes the soul is clear-seeing
independently of the ordinary physical organs.
Those who contest this fact do so on the ground
that the somnambulist does not see at all times, at

SOUL EEINCARNATION. 189

will of the skeptic, as with the eyes. Need we be
astonished if the means employed being different, the
methods are not the same? Is it reasonable to de-
mand identical effects in cases in which the instru-
ment3 employed are not the same ? The soul has its
properties just as has the eye ; and the former must
be judged of by themselves, and not by analogy with
the latter.

The case of the clairvoyant and of the natural
somnambulist is identically the same ; it ia an attrib-
ute of the soul, a faculty inherent in every part of
the incorporeal being which is in us, and has no
other limits than those assigned to the soul itself.
The somnambulist sees wherever his soul can trans-""
port itself, no matter what distance. In sight at dis-
tance the somnambulist does not see from the point
at which his body is, and as though through a tele-
scope. The things he sees are present with him, as
though he were at the place where they exist, be-
cause his soul is there in reality; and it is for this
reason that his body is, as it were, annihilated, and
seems to be deprived of sensation, until the moment
when the soul comes back and retakes possession of
it. This partial separation of the soul and the body
is an abnormal state, which may last for a longer or
shorter time, but not indefinitely ; it is the cause of
the fatigue felt by the body after a certain lapse of
time, especially when the soul, during that partial

190 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

separation, busies itself in some active spiritual
pursuit. The fact that soul-sight or spirit-sight is
not circumscribed, and has no definite seat, explains
why somnambulists are unable to assign to it any
special organ or focus. They see, because they see,
without knowing why or how ; their sight, as spirit-
sight having no special focus. If they refer their
perception to their body, this focus seems to them to
be in the organic centers in which the vital activity
is greatest, especially in the brain, in the epigastric
region, or in whatever organ appears to them to be
the point at which the bond between the spirit and
the body is most tenacious. The scope of somnam-
bulic lucidity is not unlimited. A spirit, even whep
completely free, only possesses the faculties and the
knowledge appertaining to the degree of advance-
ment at which he has arrived, a limitation which
becomes still further narrowed when he is united
with matter, and thus subjected to its influence.
This is the reason why somnambulic clairvoyance or
soul sight is neither universal nor infallible ; and its
infallibility is all the less to be counted on when it
is turned aside from the aim which has been assigned
to it by nature, and made a mere matter of curiosity
and experimentation.

In the state of comparative freedom in which the
somnambulist finds himself, he enters more easily
into communication with other spirits, incarnate or

SOUL EEINCARNATION. 191

disincarnate ; and this communication is established
through the contact of the fluids which compose
their perispirits, and serve, like the electric wire, for
the transmission of thought. The somnambulist
therefore has no need to articulate speech as a vehicle
of thought, which he feels and divines; as a mode
of perception that renders him eminently accessible
to, and impressionable by, the influences of the moral
atmosphere in which he finds himself. For the same'
reason, a numerous concourse of spectators, and es-
pecially of those who are attracted by a more or
less malevolent curiosity, is essentially unfavorable
to the manifestations of his peculiar faculties, which
close up, so to say, at the contact of hostile influ-
ences, and only unfold freely in intimacy, and under
the influence of sympathetic surroundings. The
presence of those who are malevolent or antipathetic
produces upon him the effect of the contact of the
hand«upon a sensitive plant. THe somnambulist
sees, at the same time, his own spirit and his body;
they are, so to say, two beings which represent to
him his double existence, spiritual and corporeal, and
which nevertheless, are blended into one by the ties
which unite them together. The somnambulist does
not always comprehend this duality, which often
leads him to speak of himself as though he were
speaking of another person; in such cases, the cor-
poreal being sometimes speaking to the spiritual

192 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

being, and the spiritual being sometimes speaking to
X^y the corporeal being. The spirit acquires an increase
\^ of knowledge and experience in each of his corporeal
existences. It loses sight of these gains during its
reincarnation in matter which is too gross to allow
of its remembering them in their former state; but
it remembers them as a spirit. It is thus that some
somnambulists give evidence of possessing knowl-
edge beyond their present degree of instruction, and
even of their apparent intellectual capacity. The in-
/ tellectual and scientific inferiority of a somnambulist
in his waking state, therefore, proves nothing
against his possession of the knowledge he may dis-
play in his lucid state. According to the circum-
stances of the moment and the aim proposed, he may
draw this knowledge from the stores of his own ex-
perience, from his clairvoyant perception of things
actually occurring, or from the counsels which he
receives from other spirits ; but, in proportion as his
own spirit is more or less advanced, he will make
his statements more or less correctly.

PHENOMENA OF SOMNAMBULISM

In the phenomena of somnambulism, whether nat-
ural or self-induced. Providence furnishes us with
undeniable proof of the existence and independence
of the soul, by causing us to witness the sublime
spectacle of its emancipation from the fetters of the

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 193

body, and thus enabling us to read our future destiny
as in an open book. When a somnambulist describes
what is taking place at a distance, it is equally evi-
dent that he sees what he describes, and that he does
not see it with his bodily eyes. He sees himself at
that distant point, and he feels himself to be trans-
ported thither. Something of himself, therefore, is
really present at that distant point; and that some-
thing, not being his body, can only be his soul or
his spirit. While man, in search of the causes of his
moral being, loses himself in abstract and unintel-
ligible metaphysical subtleties, God places daily be-
fore his eyes, and within reach of his hand, the sim-
plest and most certain means for the study of experi-
mental psychology.

Trance is the state in which the soul's independ-
ence of the body is made most clearly visible, and, so
to say, palpable, to the senses of the observer. In
dreaming and somnambulism, the soul wanders
among terrestrial worlds ; in trance, it penetrates into
a sphere of existence of another order, into that of
the etherealized spirits with whom it enters into com-
munication, without, however, being able to over-
step certain limits which it could not pass without
entirely breaking the links that attach it to the body.
Surrounded by novel splendors, enraptured by har-
monies unknown to earth, penetrated by bliss that
defies description, the soul enjoys a foretaste of

lU DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

celestial beatitude, and may be said to have placed
one foot on the threshold of eternity.

In the state of trance, the annihilation of cor-
poreal ties is almost complete. The body no longer
possesses an3rthing more than organic life; and we
feel that the soul is only held thereto by a single
thread, which any further effort on its part would
break forever.

In this state all earthly ties disappear, and give
place to the purified perception that is the very as-
sence of our immaterial being. Entirely absorbed
in this sublime contemplation, the ecstatic regards
the earthly life as being merely a momentary halt
upon our eternal way ; the successes and misfortunes
of this lower world, its gross joys and sorrows, ap-
pear to him only as the futile incidents of a journey
of which he is delighted to foresee the end.

It is with the ecstatic as with somnambulists;
their lucidity may be more or less perfect, and their
spirit, according as it is more or less elevated, is also
more or less apt to apprehend the truth of things.
In their abnormal state, there is sometimes more
of nervous excitement than of true lucidity; or, to
speak more correctly, their nervous excitement, im-
pairs their lucidity and, for this reason, their revela-
tions are often a mixture of truths and errors, of
sublime ideas and absurd or even ridiculous fancies.
Inferior spirits often take advantage of this nervous

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 196

excitement (which is always a source of weakness to
those who are unable to control it) , in order to sub-
jugate the ecstatic, and to this end they assume to
his eyes the appearances which confirm him in the
ideas and prejudices of his waking state. This sub-
jugation of clairvoyants by the presentation of false
appeatances is the "rock ahead" of this order, of
revealment. But all of them are not equally subject
to this dangerous misleading; and it is for us to
weigh their statements coolly and carefully, and to
judge their revelations by the light of science and of
reason.

EMANCIPATION OF THE SOUL

The emancipation of the soul occurs sometimes in
the waking state, and gives to those who are en-
dowed with the faculty designated by the name of
second-sight, the power of seeing, hearing and feel-
ing, beyond the limits of the^ bodily senses. They
perceive things at a distance at all points to which
their soul extends its action; they see them, so to
say, athwart their ordinary sight, and as though in a
sort of mirage.

At the moment when the phenomenon of second-
sight occurs, the physical state of the seer is visibly
modified. His glance becomes vague ; he looks be-
fore him without seeing; his physiognomy reflects
an abnormal state of the nervous system. It is evi-

190 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

dent that his organs of sight have nothing to do
with his present perceptions; for his vision contin-
ues, even when his eyes are shut.

The faculty of second-sight appears to those who
are endowed with it to be as natural as ordinary
sight. It seems to them to be an attribute of their
being; and they are not aware of its exceptional
character. They generally forget this fugitive lucid-
ity, the remembrance of which, becoming more and
more vague, disappears at length from their mem-
ory like a dream.

The power of second-sight varies from a confused
sensation to a clear and distinct perception of things
present or distant. In its rudimentary state, it gives
to some persons tact, perspicacity, a sort of sure-
ness, in their decisions and actions, that may be
styled the rectitude of the moral glance. At a higher
degree of development, it awakens presentiments;
still further developed, it shows to the Seer and
Adept events that have already happened, or that are
about to happen.

Natural and artificial somnambulism, trance and
second-sight are only varieties or modifications of
the action of one and the same cause. Like dreams,
they are a branch of natural phenomena and have
therefore existed in every age. History shows us
that they have been known, and even abused, from
the remotest antiquity; and they furnish the ex-

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 197

planation of innumerable facts which superstitious
prejudices have led men to regard as supernatural.

ASTRAL SPIRITS

Astral Spirits take up very little time in trans-
porting themselves through space from one point or
place to another, as their motion is as rapid as that
of thought, and really their thought is wherever
their soul is^ since it is the soul that thinks, and
thought is a part of the soul. A spirit can travel in
either way. It can if it will, take cognizance of the
distance it passes through or it can rid itself entirely
of the sense of distance. This, of course, depends
upon the spirit's will and also upon the degree of
development. Spirits can also pass through every-
thing — ^space, air, earth, water and even fire are
equally accessible to them. There is no division of
any given spirit, but every spirit is a center which
radiates in all directions and it is thus that a spirit
may appear to be in every place at once. The sun
is only one body, yet it radiates in all directions and
sends out its rays to great distance, but it is not di-
vided. Of course, it must be remembered that there
is a great difference between spirits in this respect.
It depends upon the degree of their purity. Every \
spirit dwelling upon the Astral Plane and in other
spirit realms is an indivisible unity, but each spirit
has the power of extending his thoughts on all sides

198 DEATH AND HINDU SPIKITISM.

without thereby dividing himself, and it is only in
this sense that the spirit of ubiquity, attributed to
spirits, is to be understood. It is thus that a spark
sends out its brightness far and wide and may be
perceived from every point of the horizon. It is
thus also that a man can, without changing his place,
and without dividing himself, transmit orders, sig-
nals, etc., to many different points in many differ-
ent directions. Astral Spirits are enveloped in an
auro, which is a substance which would at first ap-
pear to the clairvoyant as a mere vapor, but which,
nevertheless, appears very gross to the Adept,
though it is sufficiently vaporous to allow the spirit
to float in the atmosphere and to transport himself
through space at pleasure. Spirits draw this semi-
material body from the universe of fluid of the
globe, and for this reason a peri-spirit is not the
same on all planets, for in passing from planet to
planet, the spirit changes its Astral Body as you
would change a garment, but when spirits who in-
habit realms of high degree come among us upon
the Earth Plane they are obliged to take on grosser
conditions. That is to say, they are obliged to
clothe themselves with certain auros in order to
enter upon the Earth Plane. This auro or sub-
stance can be made to assume any form that the
spirit may choose to give it. A spirit is able at any
time to make himself invisible to you whether in

SOUL REINCABNATION. 199

dreams or in a clairvoyant state^ or he can take unto
himself any form that may be visible and even
palpable to your senses, or one that is repulsive and
will greatly alarm you. Spirits have fixed degrees
of purification. The number of these degrees is^
unlimited because there is nothing like a barrier or
line of demarkation between the degrees of elevation
of the human soul. Nevertheless in determining the
general characteristics of spirits, they may be re-
duced to three principal orders or degrees. In the
first degree or rank are those who have reached a
degree of relative perfection which constitutes what
may be termed pure intelligence. In the second rank
are those who have reached the middle of the ascen-
sional ladder or those who have achieved the degree
of purification in which aspiration after perfection
has become the ruling desire. In the third or lowest
rank and caste are all those imperfect spirits who are
really earth bound, and evily disposed toward man-
kind, and are characterized by ignorance, their love
of evil and all the low passions that retard the
progress of the human soul.* Spirits of the second
degree have great desire for aspiration and perfec-
tion, and the desire to do so is given them in degrees
proportionate to the degree of purification at which
they have arrived. Many of them are distinguished
by their scientific knowledge, others by their wis-

200 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

dotn and kindness, but all of them have still to un-
dergo discipline, trial, tonptation and suffering.

SPIRITS OF THE THIRD CLASS

Among spirits of the third class there are some who
are inactive and neutral, not doing either good or
evil. Others, on the contrary, take pleasure in evil
and are delighted when they find an opportunity of
tormenting men who are doing wrong. Others,
again, are frivolous, foolish, fantastic and mis-
chievous rather than wicked, and tricky rather than
positively malicious, amusing themselves by mysti-
fying the human being on whom they are able to act,
causing them various petty annoyances for their
own diversion. They are inclined to evil and make
it the object of all their thought and activities. As
evil spirits, they give to men perfidious counsel, stir
up discord and discontent and assume every sort of
mask in order to more effectually deceive the souls
in the body, besetting those whose character is weak
enough to yield to their suggestions and who they
can draw aside from the path of happiness, rejoic-
ing when they are able to retard their advancement
by causing them to succumb under the appointed
trials of Earth Life. Evil spirits are always revealed
by their communications for every spirit who in
his communication betrays an evil intention may be
relegated to the lewer order, and every evil thought

SOUL BBINCABNATION. 201

suggested to our mind comes from spirits of this
order. They see the happiness enjoyed by good
spirits and this sight causes them perpetual torment
and they experience all the agonies produced by envy
and jealousy. They also preserve the remembrance
and perfection of the suffering of earth life and this
impression is often more painful than the reality,
and they suffer both, in fact, from the ills they
have thus endured and from those which they have
caused to be endured by others, and as these suffer-
ings endure for a long time they believe themselves
to be destined to suffer forever, and God, for their
punishment wills that they should believe this, and
as written above, spirits of this order may be recog-
nized by their language for the trivial expressions of
spirits as by men is always dn indication of moral if
not intellectual inferiority, and their communication
through mediums or certain unsophisticated clair-
voyants show the baseness of their intentions,
though they may try to impose upon the medium
by speaking with an appearance of reason and pro-
priety they are able to keep up this false appear-
ance and end by betraying their real quality. These
spirits are addicted to all vice engendered by vile
and degrading passions, sensuality, cruelty, hypoc-
risy, etc. They commit evil for its own cause and
are devilish without any definite motive, and form
a hatred for all that is good, and generally choose

202 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

their victim from among honest and worthy medi-
ums who have no knowledge of their powers or ex-
istence. In plain words, they are a test of humanity,
being ignorant, mischievous, and addicted to mock-
ing them loudly in everything and replying to their
questions without paying any attention to the truth.
They delight in causing petty annoyances, raise
false hopes in petty joys, in misleading clairvoyants
and people in mystifications and trickery, and these
evil spirits have vulgarly been called devils, etc. In
their communications through mediums their Ian-
guage is sometimes witty and fatuous, and they are
quick to grasp absurdities of man, and things on
which they comment with sarcastic sharpness. They
will borrow distinguished names and are fond of do-
ing it because by this means they can deceive man-
kind. Again their knowledge is often considerable,
but they imagine themselves to know considerably
more than they really do, for having made a. certain
amount of progress from various points of view,
their language has an air of gravity that may easily
give a false impression as to their capacities and en-
lightenment, but their ideas are generally nothing
more than the reflections of the prejudice and false
reasoning of their earth life, their statements often
containing a mixture of truths and absurdities in
the midst of which traces of presumption, pride,
jealousy and obstinancy from which they have not

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 203

yet freed themselves are plainly active and percept-
ible. Again, they are not sufficiently advanced to
take any part in doing good, nor are some of them
bad enough to be active in committing evil, for they
incline sometimes to the one and sometimes to the
other, never raising above the ordinary level of the
earth bound spirits, either in point of morality or
of intelligence and arc strongly attached to things of
the Earth Plane, whose gross satisfaction they re-
gret. There are also noisy and boisterous spirits \
who do not, strictly speaking, form a distinct class
in virtue and their personal qualities, as they may
belong to all classes of the third order, and often
manifest their presence by production of phenomena
perceptible to the senses, such as taps, the move-
ment and displacing of abnormal bodies, the agita-
tion of the air, etc., which among the Hindus is
termed "Objective Change.*' Spirits of this nature
are more evil than any other class or grade of spir-
its. They are the particular agents in determining
the vicissitudes of the elements of the earth. They
approach the air, water, fire and the various bodies
in the entrails of the earth, and when these bodies
present certain phenomena of character and intention
and intelligence, this phenomena should not be at-
tributed to a mere fortuitous and physical cause as
all spirits are able to produce physical phenomena
or objective change. Spirits of an elevated degree

204 DEATH AND HINDU SPIKITISM.

easily leave this phenomena to those of the lower
order, who are more apt for action upon matter than
things of intelligence, when they judge it to be use-
ful to produce physical manifestations such as death
raps, thundering noises around the bed and in the
room of a person whose time of death has already
been fixed. Spirits of this grade are employed for
this work and while there are many wise people, so-
called, who are skeptic in regard to the death raps,
warnings, etc., there is absolutely no question of
these phenomena as no human soul has ever left the
physical body without the writing having appeared
somewhere at some time and in some place upon
the wall or, in other words, there has been a warn-
ing of their death sent and given by these spirits;
but if we are too busy or too ignorant to know these
things when they come, the fault is our own.

Predominance of the spirits of the second de-
gree over matter ; their desire of excellence and their
qualities and their power for good are proportionate
to the degree at which they have arrived. Some of
them possess scientific knowledge, others have ac-
quired wisdom and charity; the more^ advanced
among them combine knowledge with moral excel-
lences. Not being yet completely dematerialized,
they perceive the traces of their corporeal existence,
more or less strongly marked, according to their
rank — ^traces of which are seen either in their mode

SOUL RBINCABNATION. 205

of exj)ressingf themselves, in their habits, or even
in some cases in the characteristic eccentricities and
hobbies still retained by them, and but for these
weaknesses and imperfections they would be able to
pass into the category of spirits of the first order.

They have acquired the comprehension of the idea
of God and of infinity, and already share the felicity
of the higher spheres. They find their happiness
both in the accomplishment of good and in the pre-
vention of evil. The affection by which they are
united affords them ineffable delight, troubled nei-
ther by envy, remorse nor any other of the evil pas-
sions which make the torment of spirits of lower
degree ; but they have still to undergo the discipline
of trial until they have completed the work of their
purification. As spirits, they infuse good and noble
thoughts into the minds of men, turn them from the
paths of evil, protect those whose course of life ren-
ders them worthy t)f their aid, and neutralize by
their suggestions the influence of lower spirits on
the minds of those who do not willingly yield to the
evil counsels of the latter.

The human beings in whom they are incarnated
are upright and benevolent ; they are actuated neither
by pride, selfishness, nor ambition ; they feel neither
hatred, rancour, envy, nor jealousy, and do good for
its own sake. To this order belongs the spirit com-
monly designated in the popular beliefs by the names

206 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

of good genu, protecting genu, good spirits. In
periods of ignorance and superstition men have re-
garded them as beneficent divinities.

208 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

''THE HINDU ADEPTS."

We recognise alone] in the unreal.
That Astral power exists.

All matter is at strife.
And all material things at war with life.
So, quite discarding interest in these.
Abandoning the Held to those who please.
What we call "Spirit Power" seek we to attain.
And scourge the Aesh with all its fancies vain.

— Dr, de Laurence.

I^%ll^

«EtiAlT.ff

HmiE

c^^

CHAPTER X.

BENEVOLENT SPIRITS

The dominant quality of benevolent spirits is
kindness. They take pleasure in rendering services
to men and in protecting them, but their knowledge
is somewhat limited as they have progressed in mor*
ality rather than in intelligence and learned spirits
are especially distinguished by the extent of their
knowledge. They are less interested in moral ques-
tions than in scientific investigations, for which
they have a greater aptitude. Their spiritual studies
are always prosecuted with a view of practical util-
ity, and they are entirely free from the base pas-
sions common to spirits of lower degree of advance-
ment. The wise spirits are those whose elevated
morals calls for very distinctive characteristics with-
out having arrived at the position of unlimited
knowledge. They have reached the development of
intellectual capacity which enables them to judge ac-
cordingly of man and of things. High Caste spirits
are those who unite in the very highest degi^c of
scientific knowledg^e. Their impression and com-
munications are all surpassed only by the pure be-

210 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

nevolence which is always noble and elevated, often
sublime, as their superiority renders them more apt
than any others to impart to the medium and those
whom they care to impress just and true ideas in
relation to the incorporeal world within the limits
of the knowledge permitted to mankind. They
willingly enter into spirit communication with good
mediums and those who seek them truly in simplic-
ity and sincerity^ and who are sufficiently freed
from the point of sensuality and materialism to be
capable of understanding them, but they turn from
those whose inquiries are prompted only by curios-
ity, or who will be drawn away from rectitude by
the evil attractions of material things, and when
under exceptional circumstances they incarnate
themselves in the physical body, it is always for the
accomplishment of a mission of progress, and they
thus show us the highest type of perfection to which
we can inspire in the present world.

INFLUENCE AND SIGHT OF SPIRITS

Spirits are able to penetrate the innermost
thoughts of mankind if they choose, as they are con-
tinually around him, but no disembodied spirit sees
only those things to which it directly gives its atten-
tion and pays no heed whatever to those things that
do not interest it. Owing to the fact of their being
able to read our most secret thoughts they often see

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 211

and find out many things that we would desire
really to hide from ourselves, and it will be seen that
it is far more easy to conceal a secret or hide a fact
from a person living than to conceal it from the
same person after death. Many an individual has
fancied himself entirely alone and hidden from every
eye, but at the same time he is surrounded by a
crowd of spirits who can watch his every move and
learn his most secret thought if they desire. Evily
disposed spirits enjoy the little annoyances that come
to mankind and laugh and amuse themselves at his
impatience or anger. The higher grade of spirits
pity mankind for his imperfections and shortcom-
ings, and endeavor to aid and cure him of them.
Many have asked, "Do spirits influence the thoughts
and actions of mankind?" They do beyond any
peradventure of a doubt, and this influence upon
your thoughts and actions is far greater than you
suppose it to be, as spirits very often attract and
control mankind. There are times when man has
thoughts that originate with himself, and others that
are suggested by disembodied spirits, for you must
remember that your soul is a spirit, and you have,
also observed that many thoughts, and frequently
very opposite ones comes into your mind, referring
to the same matter, but at the same time. In cases
of this kind some of these thoughts and ideas are
your own, some belong to the spirits themselves and

212 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

are the cause of your uncertainties, because you
have thoughts in your mind that have different
origins and are consequently opposed to each other.
The way and manner of distinguishing between
thoughts that belong to you and come from yourself
directly, and those which are transmitted to you by
spirits is as follows: those thoughts which come
to you first are usually your own, but when a
thought comes to you like a voice speaking unto you,
it comes from a disembodied spirit. In point of fact
this distinction is of practical importance, especially
if the impressions that are about to be given you
come from the spirits who are good advisers. In
consequence of the above, you will see that man is
not left to his own freedom even in regard to his
innermost thoughts in life. Men of great genius
and intelligence do not always draw their ideas from
their own minds. It is true their ideas sometimes
come from their own souls, but they are more often
transmitted to them by the spirits of the Astral
Plane, whenever they are thought capable of receiv-
ing and understanding them and being worthy of
the knowledge transmitted to them. There are times
when an individual will not be able to find ^.he idea
or thought that he seeks in himself, and if he will
make an appeal for inspiration or an evocation, he
will receive assistance. It should, of course, be re-
membered that every person is not able to distin-

SOUL REINCARNATION. 213

guish dearly between their own thoughts and those
which are transmitted to them by spirits. If this
were best, of course, the power to do so would have
been given to every one, as they have been given the
power to distinguish between day and night, but
when any matter has been left by the Creator for an
individual in a state of vagueness, it has been left
so because it is better for him. As stated before, our
first thoughts are usually our own. The ideas and
thoughts transmitted from the spirits upon the
Astral Plane may be good or bad, owing to
the nature of the spirit, but every person should
at all times close the door of their souls
to bad impressions. They should also study
the quality of the thoughts and impressions transmit-
ted to them, for good spirits give only wise counsel,
and it is for us to be able to distinguish between
good and bad. The reason why evilly disposed
spirits desire to prompt and excite us to evil actions
is, because they desire that we suffer the same as they
do themselves, because a disembodied spirit is
possessed of envy and jealousy of any person who is
happier and more pure than they are themselves.
Evilly disposed spirits are used as the instruments of
God to test man's faith and constancy for well doing,
and the human soul must advance in knowledge of
God and it is for this purpose and end that it is
forced to pass through the trials and tests of evil in

214 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

order to attain goodness. The mission of the good
spirits who dwell in Spirit Life are the same as those
of a good man or woman upon the earth plane, that
is to lead and direct you in the right path. The soul
of man is like a magnet, that is to say, that it will
attract what it desires, for like always attracts like.
Any person who is influenced or acted upon by an
evil spirit has attracted these spirits to himself by his
evil desires, as evil spirits will always come to aid
you in doing evil and performing anjrthing that is
bad. They can assist you in doing wrong and will
prompt you to wrong whenever you give way to
your evil desires. If a man is a murderer or a thief
in his heart he will attract to himself and there will
surround him, many evilly disposed spirits who were
murderers and thieves themselves and they will ac-
tuate the desire to murder and keep it active within
his soul. On the other hand, there will be good
spirits and they will try to influence you for good
and this will restore you to your balance and make
you able to master yourself if you are inclined to
listen to their impressions. It is thus that man has
been left to his own conscience and to choose the
path and road he desires or decides to follow. He
has the liberty and free will of yielding to one in-
fluence or the other, as both of these opposing in-
fluences act upon the soul of every man. Conse-
quently, it is well for you to remember that you can

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 215

only detach yourself from evil spirits by setting
yourself and your soul against evil thoughts and
desires, because evil spirits whose influences and im-
pressions are repelled by your will and soul, are
forced to remove their temptations, for as soon as
they see that they cannot accomplish their aim they
give up the attempt, but are ever watching to con-
tinue at the first possible moment, the same as a
hawk will watch its prey,, and it is only by doing
what is right and putting all of your trust in God
that you are able to repel the influence of evil spirits
and prevent them from obtaining power and control
over you. You should be ever careful not to listen
to the impressions of spirits who are inclined to in-
spire you with evil thoughts or desires or they would
stir up discord in you and excite you to evil passions.
Set yourself against those spirits who would flatter
you and make you vain and proud, for in doing so
they attack mankind on his weakest side. This is
why you have been taught to pray thus, "Let us not
succumb to temptation but deliver us from evil."

SPIRITS OF EVIL INFLUENCE

The spirits who influence and incline us to evil by
putting our firmness into rectitude have not received
a mission to do so, and they themselves are respon-
sible for this evil and wrongdoing of this mission,
for no soul or spirit has ever received a mission from

216 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

the Almighty to commit evil, and when it does it of
its own free will and inclination, and therefore has
got to answer the consequences of its wrong doing.
Man may take the way and path of evil but he does
not do it because he has been commanded to do it.
It is for him to repel and not attract evil unto him-
self, and I will say to you again that it is a great
universal and immutable law, ^'that like attracts
like/' and he who maintains and entertains an evil
condition of mind will attract evil influences (Spirits)
to him, consequently the fault is all his own. When-
ever the human soul feels a' vague anxiety or nervous
undefinable sensation, or a condition of entire con-
tent and satisfaction without any visible assign-
able cause these sensations and conditions do not
proceed from any physical or material source,
as they are the direct result of the com-
munication and influences received from dis-
embodied spirits or that we have received
during sleep or deep meditation. Whenever spirits
desire to excite us to evil they can take advantage of
the condition in which they find us, or they them-
selves, if we let our souls open to them can bring
about circumstances and conditions which are favor-
able to their designs. However, they are ever ready
to take advantage of an occurrence or any favorable
circumstances. They bring the same about by in-
fluencing or urging you, without your being aware

♦ ^

SOUL BEIKOABNATION. 2Xi

of it, toward the object of your unwise desire. As
an illustration, you may find an amount of money
on the street You should not be foolish enough to
imagine that disembodied spirits placed this amount
on the street for you, but they may have suggested to
you the idea of going that way and when you have
picked up the money they can transmit to you the
idea of keeping it in your possession without making
any effort of finding the rightful owner. A good
spirit will suggest to you that it would be right to
restore it to its rightful owner, and it is thus with
all of the temptations of life.

The writer has been often asked, is it possible for
a disembodied spirit to for a time, enter the body of
a living person? That is to say, can he incarnate
himself into an animate body and act in a certain
place in the place of the soul incarnated in it A dis-
embodied spirit does not enter into the body of an-
other, but it can assimilate itself with the soul of an-
other who has the same defects and the same qualities
as itself, and influence him to do as he pleases. No
spirit can substitute itself in the place of a soul who
is existing, is a physical body, for a soul is indissolv-
ably united with its body until thejtime of death.
An individual may become possessed, dominated,
subjugated and obsessed by a disembodied spirit
to such an extent that the will As entirely subdued,
and it is this which really constitutes the term obses-

218 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITI8M.

sion, but this domination and control is never estab-
lished without the participation of the soul who is
subjected to it either through its weakness or own
free will, and the real condition that brings the
human soul under the control and power of an evil
spirit despite its resistance, is the result of its own
wrong doing. There are many cases of insanity
that arc not the result and work of evil spirits. These
cases of course do not need the assistance of the ex-
orciser. The word obsession in its common ac-
ceptation presupposes the existence of demons or
devils of the category of evil beings and a nature
essentially bad, and the cohabitation of one of these
beings with a soul of a man in the body of the latter.
The truth is that there are no such beings as demons
in the sense above defined, and since two spirits can-
not at the same time inhabit the same body there is
no such a thing as ix>ssession in the sense commonly
attributed to that word, and the word obsession or
possessed can only be explained as expressing a state
of soul subjugation to which the soul in the body
may be reduced by the evil spirits under whose in-
fluence and domain it has fallen. It is very diflicult
for a soul thjit has been obsessed to free itself or
drive away an evil spirit and it is only through stead-
fastness and firmness and a decided resolve to do so
that a person is able to escape from these evil influen-
ces. Where this influence and fascination exer-

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 219

cised by an evil spirit is so complete that the person
subjugated should be unable to rid himself of it, it is
necessary for a third person to end the control, and
the following course should be taken. An upright
man or priest should be procured, who by attracting
the co-operation of good spirits in the work of de-
liverance of the subjected soul, will be able to free it
of bad spirits, for the more upright a man is, the
more power he possesses both over evil spirits to
drive them away and over good ones to attract them
and bring them to his assistance. However, the best
Adept in these matters will be perfectly powerless
unless the obsessed person inclines himself to the
efforts made in his behalf, and it should be remem-
bered that there are many persons who take delight
in the state of dependence which panders to de-
praved tastes and desires and in no case can one who
is powerful in a spiritual way exercise a liberating
influence, for, unless the person affected sincerely
desires to be assisted, he would be despised by good
spirits and they would refuse to assist him, while the
bad ones stand in no alarm of him. There are many
formulas and receipts given by the unlearned in true
Occultism for Exorcism over bad spirits. Many of
these formulas and ceremonies do no good, for when
bad spirits see anjrone foolishly endeavoring to get
rid of them by such means they laugh at them and
grow only the stronger in their obsession. When-

220 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

ever a person becomes obsessed and their intentions
are good it is best for them to tire out the patience of
evil spirits by taking no heed of their suggestions^
by showing them that they are simply wasting their
time and as soon as they can see that they are not
going to accomplish anything they will quickly leave.
Deep and serious prayer is always an effective means
of obtaining help, but it must be remembered that the
chanting or saying of certain words will have no
effect in obtaining what you desire, and no man can
be helped unless he is inclined to help himself. It
is therefore necessary to use prayer, and the person
possessed must do so to cure himself first of his evil
thoughts and defects which first attracted evil spirits
to him. This in connection with the Occult Powen
of a true Adept in Art Magic will give them relief.

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 221

''INDIA'S IDOLS/'

The idols are not worshiped, but fulAU

A part in representing to the mind

The great idea, which is but enshrined

Within the heart, though dimly. He who bows

In India to an idol, wUl arouse

And tell you:

"Him the sun cannot repress.
Nor moon, nor stars, nor lightning can express.
Nor fire explain; they through Him only shine.
While all that live, exist through Him divine''-^
Though undeveloped intellect may screen
The far idea, by the image seen.
In this America my eyes have viewed
Some acts which might be equally construed:
To bow before a picture, statue, saint.
Excites in Christian Churches no restraint.
And I perceive no difference, unless
In this: less beauty and less comeliness
And less attractiveness, to chain the heart
Have Indians idols, than their counterpart.
The very argument, as urged to me
In free America, is Jndufs plea.
Buddhist, Brahman, and Hindoo adduce
The image merely serves to reproduce

222 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

The great idea, which, though not defined,
Has yet to every phase some form assigned.
The Christians raise to saints memorial shrines.
And loved relations; where, then, draw the lines?
If Hindus to their Saints due honors use.
Which shall he blamed, and who shall dare accuse?
While Mussulmen, who so from idols shrink
When others bow, what shall those others think
Of Meccds black, unshapen stone, and tomb?
And what, when to their consciousness there loom
The thousands who before Mahomet's name
Fall and adore?

Are not these acts, the same?
Mahomet, who zvas man, nor greatness earned.
Above Confucius, or Gautama learned.
Gautama Buddh his followers forbid
To search the realms, where mystery is hid.
Where origin unfolds itself complete.
Since this involves inquiry indiscreet.
And questioning of God.

But 'tis comprised
In Sanscrit literature, and clear advised
By Constitution of the Cosmos' tried.
Symbolical expressions set aside.
What previous Hierophants confirmed,
^s now by modem thinkers reaffirmed;
The precept old, is of new thought the kernel —
That Spirit and that life are eternal
The written word of Indians ancient minds.
The present to the past securely binds,

SOUL BEINGABNATION. 223

While recent sciences, and theory.

Advance conclusions in philosophy.

Like echoes sounding from the Orient,

Reverberating to the Occident.

Thus thought, revolving like the circling earth.

Completes an era, and attains new birth.

— Dr. de Laurence.

CHAPTER XL

CASTING OUT EVIL SPIRITS

Many people speak of casting out devils or
demons. The truth of this saying depends upon the
meaning you attach to the words devils or demons.
If you mean by that term a bad spirit who subju-
gates a human being, it is evident that, when his
influence is destroyed, he will really be driven away.
If you attribute a malady to the devil, you may say,
when you have cured the malady, that you have
driven the devil away. This statement may be true
or false, according to the meaning attributed to cer-
tain words. The most weighty truths may appear
absurd when you look only at the form under which

^ they are presented and when an allegory is taken for

»' a fact. Get this principle well into your mind, and

keep it there, for it is of universal application. Spir-
its play a very important part in that phenomena
exhibited by certain individuals designated under the

\ name of convulsionaries, as does also the agent that

the Hindu calls Astral Fluid, whether employed by

' human beings or by spirits; for this agent is the

^ original source of those phenomena. But charlatans

226 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

have often exaggerated these effects and made thetn
a matter of speculation, which has brought them into
ridicule. The nature of the spirits who help produce
this phenomena are those of very slight elevation, for
no spirit of high degree will be guilty of committing
these acts. Whole populations may be suddenly
thrown into the abnormal state of convulsions
through sympathy. Moral dispositions are also ex-
ceedingly contagious, for you are not so ignorant of
the effects of human magnetism and Astral
Fluid as not to understand this, and also
the part that certain spirits would natur-
ally take in such occurrences through sympathy
with those by whom they are produced. Among the
strange peculiarities remarked in convulsionaries sev-
eral are evidently identical with those of which som-
nambulism, mingled with Astral Fluid, offer numer-
ous examples, viz., physical insensibility, thought
reading, sympathetic transmission of sensations, etc.
It is waking somnambulism, determined by the in-
fluence which they unwittingly exercise upon each
other. They are at once mesmerizers and mesmer-
ized unconsciously to themselves.

The cause of the physical insensibility sometimes
remarked in convulsionaries, and sometimes also in ^

other persons when subjected to the most atrocious
tortures, is in some cases simply an effect of human
magnetism, which acts upon the nervous system in ;

♦
i

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 227

the same manner as do certain substances. In other
cases mental excitement deadens the sensibility of
the organism, the center of consciousness retiring
from the body in order to concentrate itself in the
spirit. Have you not observed that, when the soul
is intensely occupied with any matter, the body
neither feels, nor sees, nor hears. The excitement
of fanaticism and enthusiasm offer, on the part of
persons subjected to a violent death, examples of a
calmness and coolness that could hardly triumph
over excruciating pain unless the sensibility of the
patient were neutralized by a sort of soul anesthesia.
It is known that, in the heat of battle, a severe
wound is often received without being perceived;
whilst, under ordinary circumstances, a mere scratch
is felt acutely.

Since the production of these phenomena of
anesthesia is due, in part, to the action of physical
causes and in part to that of spirits, it may be asked
how it can have been possible for the civil author-
ities, in certain cases, to put a stop to them. The
reason of this is, however, very simple. The actions
of spirits in these cases is only secondary; they do
nothing more than take advantage of a natural ten-
dency. The public authorities did not suppress this
tendency, but the cause which kept up and stimulated
it, thus reducing it from a state of activity to one
of latency ; and they were right in so doing, because

228 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

the matter was giving rise to abuses and scandal.
Such intervention, nevertheless, is powerless in cases
where the action of spirits is direct and spontaneous.
Good spirits sympathize with all men who are
good or susceptible of amelioration ; inferior spirits
with men who are bad or who may become such.
The attachment, in both cases^ is a consequence of
the similarity of sentiment, or as I have told you
that, like attracts like.

AFFECTION OF CERTAIN SPIRITS FOR

CERTAIN PERSONS

The affection of certain spirits for certain persons
is not one of exclusive sentiment, for true affection
has nothing of carnality ; but when a spirit attaches
himself to a living person it is not always through
affection only; for there may also be in that attach-
ment a reminiscence of human passions. Good spir-
its take an interest in our misfortunes and prosperity.
Those who wish us well are grieved by the ills we
undergo during life. Good spirits do you all the
good they can and rejoice with you in all your joys.
They mourn over your afflictions when you do not
bear them with resignation, because in that case
affliction produces no beneficial result, for you are
like the sick man who rejects the disagreeable
draught that would cure him. The kind of ills that
cause the most grief to your spirit friends are those

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 229

of selfishness and hard-heartedness, for these are the
root of all your troubles. They smile at the imagin-
ary sorrow that are born of pride and ambition ; they
rejoice in those which will shorten your term of trial.
Our spirit friends, knowing that corporeal life is
only transitory and that the tribulations by which it
is accompanied are the means that will enable you to
reach a happier state, are more grieved for you by
the moral imperfections which keeps you back than
by physical ills, which are only transitory. Spirits
attach as little importance to misfortunes which
affect you only in your earthly ideas as you do to
the trifling sorrows of childhood. Seeing the afilic-
tions of life to be the means of your advancement
they regard them only as the passing means which
will restore the sick man to health. They are grieved
by your sufferings, as you are grieved by those
of a friend; but, judging the events of your lives
from a truer point of view, they appreciate them dif-
ferently. While inferior spirits try to drive you to
despair, in order to hinder your advancement, the
good ones seek to inspire you with the courage that
will turn your trials into a source of gain for your
future.

2S0 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

*Ti$ eaty enough to he pleasant
When Life goes hy with a song.

But the Soul worth while.

Which will receive Amelioration,

Is the one who can smile

When everything goes wrong,

SPIRIT PROTECTORS

There are certain spirits who attach themselves to
a particular person in order to protect and help him.
These are what are termed the spirit brother, spirit
protector or the good genius of a person, and is
often spoken of as a guardian angel, or spirit pro-
tector of high degree. The mission of the spirit
protector is the same as that of the father toward his
child. It is their aim and desire to lead the object
of their protection into the right road, to aid him
with his counsels, to console him in his afflictions
and sustain his courage under the trials of his
earthly existence. This spirit protector is attached
to a person from the moment of his birth to the time
of his death, when this attachment is continued after
death in spirit life and in even their next earthly
existence, if this particular spirit or soul should be-
come reincarnated or live on earth again at some
future period. Every person's spirit protector is
obliged to watch over him, because he has accepted
the charge and duty, but the spirit brother or pro-
tector has the privilege of choosing his ward from

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 231

among those who are sympathetic and congenial
with him. It is many times that this duty is a pleas-
ure, others it is a mission. Once a spirit protector
has attached himself to a given person he need not
necessarily refrain from protecting another person,
but he does so less exclusively.

A spirit protector sometimes abandons his ward
when the latter persists in neglecting his counsels.
He withdraws from him when he sees that his coun-
sels are useless and that there is a stubborn deter-
mination to yield to the influence of inferior spirits,
but he does not abandon them entirely and continues
to make himself heard. It is not the spirit who quits
the man, but the man who closes his soul against the
spirit. As soon as the man calls him back the spirit
returns to him.

If there be a doctrine that should win over the
most incredulous by its charm and its beauty it is
that of the existence of the spirit protectors or guar-
dian angels. To think that you have always near
you beings who are superior to you and who are
always beside you to counsel you, to sustain you, to
aid you in climbing the steep ascent of self-improve-
ment, whose friendship is truer and more devoted
than the most intimate union that you can contract
upon the earth. Is not such an idea most consoling?
Those good spirits are near you by the commands of
God. It is He who has placed them beside you.

232 DEATH AND HINDU SPIMTISM.

They are there for love of Him, and fulfill towards
you a noble but laborious mission. They are with
you wherever you may be; in the dungeon, in soli-
tude, in the lazar-house, even in the haunts of de-
bauchery. Nothing ever separates you from a true
friend whom you cannot see, but whose gentle im-
pulsions are felt, and whose wise monitions are heard
in the innermost recesses of your heart.

REVELATION

Would that you were more fully impressed with
this truth; how often would it aid you in your
moments of need ; how often would it save you from
the snares of evil spirits; but at the great day of
account how often will your guardian angel have to
say to you, "Did I not urge you and yet you would
not follow my leading? Did I not show you the
abyss, and yet you persisted in throwing yourself
into it ? Did I not cause your conscience to hear the
voice of truth, and have you not followed lying coun-
sels ?" Question your guardian spirits ; establish be-
tween yourselves and them the affectionate intimacy
which exists between tried and loving friends. For
did not Christ say, '7 always listen for the inner
voice of revelation/^ Do not think to hide anything
from them, for they are the eye of God and you can-
not deceive them. Think of the future ; seek to ad-
vance on the upward road; your trials will be

80UL BEINCABNATION. 233

shorter, your existence happier. Men, take courage ;
cast far from you all prejudices and mental reserva-
tions ; enter resolutely ui)on the new road that opens
before you. You have guides, follow them. Your
goal cannot fail you, that goal is God Himself.

To those who may think it impossible that spirits
of high degree should bind themselves to a task so
laborious and demanding so much patience on their
part, my reply is that spirits influence your souls
while at many millions of leagues from you. To
them space is nothing, and, while living in another
world, spirits preserve their connection with yours.
They possess qualities of which you can form no
idea; but be sure that God has not imposed upon
them a task above their strength, and that He has
not abandoned you upon the earth without friends
and without support. Every guardian angel has his
ward, over whom he watches as a father watches
over his child ; he rejoices when he sees him follow-
ing the right road ; he mourns when his counsels are
neglected.

Do not fear to weary them with your questions.
Remain, on the contrary, always in connection with
them, and you will thus be stronger and happier. It
is this communication between each man and his
familiar spirit and the spirits of the Astral Plane
that will eventually make all men mediums and drive
out incredulity from the world. You who have re-

234 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

ceived instruction instruct in your turn. You who
are possessed of talents raise your brethren. You
know not how great a work you accomplish by so
doing; it is the work of Christ, the work imposed
on you by God. Why has God given you intelligence
and knowledge, as well as Great Occult and Spir-
itual Powers if not to share them with your brethren
to aid them to advance on the road that leads to
eternal felicity. The doctrine of guardian spirits
watching over their wards, notwithstanding the dis-
tance which separates different worlds, has in it noth-
ing that should excite your surprise ; it is as natural
as it is grand and sublime. Do we not see a mother,
upon the earth, watch over her child even though at
a distance from her and aid him by the wise coun-
sels of her letters and advice? Why, then, should
it be deemed surprising that spirits should guide,
from one world to another, those whom they take
under their protection, since, to them, the distance
which separates worlds is less than than which, on
earth, separates continents. Besides have they
not the use of the universal Astral fluids, which binds
together all the worlds of the universe and makes
them part and parcel of each other? This Astral
Fluid acts for them as the universal vehicle for the
transmission of thought, as the air acts for us the
vehicle of the transmission of sound.

SOUL BEINCAKNATION. 235

EVIL SPIRITS UNITE TO NEUTRALIZE
THE ACTION OF THE GOOD ONES

If a spirit abandons his ward and no longer
watches over him he will never do him any harm,
as good spirits never do harm to any one. They
leave that to those who take their place and you then
accuse fate of the misfortunes that overwhelm you,
while in reality it is the results of your own wrong-
doings and your own sad mistakes. Evil spirits
unite to neutralize the action of the good ones, but
the soul of the ward suffices to give back all the
power to his spirit protector. When the one pro-
tected has a positive will for good it renders it easy
to help him. In such a case he takes advantage of
doing good while awaiting the return of his ward.
Whenever your spirit protector allows you to wander
into evil ways and wrong paths it is not because he
is unable to cope with the bad spirits which mislead
you, but because he does not choose to do so. He
knows that you will become wiser and better
through the trials that you will have brought upon
yourself. Your spirit brother will assist you through
great counsels and will suggest to your mind ideas
and thoughts which are not always heeded, but this
will be due to your own weakness, carelessness or
pride, and this in itself gives great strength and
power to bad spirits as their power over you comes
solely from your not opposing sufficient resistance to

286 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

their action and influence. Again you may wonder
if your spirit protector and counselor is constantly
with you. There are, of course, circumstances under
which the presence of your protector is not neces-
sary. When once the human soul has reached a
degree of development which enables him to guide
himself, as the time comes when a scholar no longer
needs a master or teacher, the soul has no longer
need of his guardian angel, but this point or stage in
your spiritual development is never reached upon the
Earth Plane. The good spirits of the Astral Plane
many times assist you when you have no knowledge
of the same, and it is well that you have no knowl*
edge of this, for if you count on their support you
will not act of yourself, consequently your self action
and soul cannot progress, for in order to convince
each man to acquire personal experience, often at
the expense of his own soul, he must exercise his
soul powers, otherwise he would live like a child who
is not allowed to walk alone. The action of the spir-
its who desire your welfare is always regulated in
5uch a way as to let you use your own free will, for
if you had no resiponsibility you would not advance
on the road that is to lead you to a better spiritual
existence. Mankind not seeing his spiritual sup-
porters puts forth his own strength, but his spiritual
guides, however, watches over him and calls to him
from time to time to bid him beware of approaching

SOUL BEINCAENATION. 237

danger. Whenever your spirit protector succeeds in
guiding you upon the right path, he thereby benefits
you and also himself, as his work is a meritorious
work which will be counted to him either for his
advancement or his happiness. He rejoices when
he sees his ward and care crowned with success, and
triumphs as a teacher triumphs over the success of
a student. If he has done everything for you that
has depended on him and has not succeeded for you,
you and not he will be held responsible. Spirit pro-
tectors always feel grieved at the errors made by
mankind and pity him, but this has nothing of the
anguish of earth life, because the spirit guide knows
that there is a remedy for the evil and that what is
not done to-day will be done in the future. If you
desire to evoke your spirit guide give him any name
you please, that is to say, any name that you feel
would do for a superior spirit for whom you feel
great veneration ; your spirit guide will then always
answer your appeal, for all good spirits are brothers
and assist each other. There are many spirit guides
who take well known names of persons. These per-
sons have been in sympathy with these spirits and in
many cases come by their order, and if you desire
them to take a name they will do so to inspire you
with their confidence. A father or mother in spirit
life camiot be the real spirit guardian of their child,
for such guardianship possesses a certain degree of

238 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

Spirit elevation and the power granted by God.
However, a parent who watches over his child may
himself be assisted by a spirit of more elevated de-
gree. A soul which has passed from the earth plane
under favofable conditions can in a sense become a
protector of those whom they left and that have sur-
vived them, but their power is more or less narrowed
by their position and advancement. This, of course,
does not always leave them free of liberty and action.
Savages and men who are very low as regards their
moral state have their protectors, for every man has
a spirit who watches over him, but missions are
always proportioned to their object. You would not
give the professor of philosophy to a child who is
learning its grammar. The advancement of the
guardian spirit is always proportioned to that of the
soul he protects. While you yourself have a spirit of
higher degree who watches over you, you may in
turn become the protector of a souF who is lower
than you, and the progress you help him make will
contribute to your own advancement, for God does
not demand of any soul or spirit more than is con-
sistent to its nature and with the degree at which it
has arrived. It would not be entirely correct to say
that a good spirit and an evil one is attached to each
individual for the purpose of exciting him to evil and
thus furnishing him with the opportunity of strug-
gling between good and evil. Nevertheless it is true

SOUL BBINCABNATION. 239

the bad spirits do endeavor to draw you out of the
right road whenever they find an opportunity of
doing so, but when an evil spirit attaches himself
to an individual he does so of his own accord, be-
cause he hopes to be able to influence him and cause
him to not listen to good. In this case there is a
struggle between the good and evil spirit, and the
victory remains with the one whose influence the
man has subjected himself to, or as written above,
has attracted to him by his own condition of mind
and soul, which must be either good or bad.

THE MASTER OF SPIRITISM.

His snowy hair and heard identified
With purple robes and manner dignified.
While inviting you, in a kindly voice.
Come to Indians teachings, to conquer, and rejoice.

— Dr. de Laurence.

CHAPTER XIL

FAMILIAR SPIRITS

From the above explanations of the nature and
possibilities of Spiritism, which are the results of
years of meditation and observation, as well as com-
munication with all kinds of nature of spirits on the
Astral Plane, who attach themselves to and influence
man, you may draw the following conclusions and
rely upon them as being literally and sacredly true :
That the spirit protector, good genius or guardian
angel is the one whose mission it is to follow each
man through the course of life, and to aid him to
progress to his degree of advancement which is al-
ways superior to that of his ward.

Familiar spirits attach themselves, to certain per-
sons for a longer or shorter period, in order to be
useful to them within the limits (often somewhat
narrow) of their possibilities; they are generally
well-intentioned, but sometimes rather backward and
even frivolous. They busy themselves with the
every-day details of human life, and only act by or-
der with the permission of the spirit guardians.

Sympathetic spirits are those who are drawn to us

242 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

by personal affection, and by a similarity of tastes in
good or in evil. The duration of their relationship
with us is almost dependent on circumstances. An
evil genius is an imperfect or wicked spirit, who
attaches himself to a man for the purpose of pervert-
ing him, but he acts of his own motion and not in
virtue of a mission. His tenacity is proportionate to
the more or less easy access accorded to him. A man
is always free to listen to the suggestions of an evil
genius or to repel them.

There are persons who attach themselves to others
in order to urge and influence them on to their in-
jury, or to direct them in the right path. And many
persons do in fact exercise over others a fascination
and influence which seems irresistible. When this
influence is used for evil it is to be attributed to an
evil spirit or soul, who makes use of evil men in
order the more effectually to subject their victim,
and this is often done in order to try a person. Many
times spirits attach themselves to all the members .
of a family in order to watch over, aid and guide
them, and as spirits are attracted to a family so they
become attracted to a large number of individuals
by s)mipathy. They are also attracted to an order
or company of people and become united in their
views with them. Spirits go by preference to the
places where they meet their similars ; they are more
at ease among such and more sure of being listened

SOUL BEINCARNATION. 843

to. Every one attracts spirits to himself according
to his tendencies, whether as an individual or as an
element of a collective whole, such as a society, a
city or a nation. Societies, towns and nations are
therefore assisted by spirits of more or less elevated
degree, according to the character and passions
which predominate in them. Imperfect spirits with-
draw from those who repel them, from which it fol-
lows that the moral excellence of collective wholes,
like that of individuals, tends to keep away bad spir-
its and to attract good ones, who rouse and keep
alive the sense of rectitude in the masses, as others
may sow among them the worst passions.

Agglomerations of individuals, such as societies,
cities, nations, have their special spirit guardians, for
these assemblages constitute collective individuali-
ties, who are pursuing a common end, and who have
need of a higher direction. There are certain spirits
who advance the progress of Occult teachings by
protecting those who cultivate them. Again there
are special spirit protectors who assist those by whom
they are invoked when they judge them to be
worthy of their help; but what could they do with
those who fancy themselves to be what they are not.
They cannot make the blind see nor the deaf hear.

The ancients converted these spirit guardians into
special deities. The Muses were nothing else than
the allegoric personification of the spirit protectors

244 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

of arts and sciences, just as the spirit protectors of
the family circle were designated by the name of
lares or of penates. Among the moderns the arts,
the various industries, cities, countries, have also
their protecting patrons, who are no other than spirit
guardians of a higher order, but under different
names.

Each man having his sympathetic spirit it follows
that, in every collective whole, the generality of sym-
pathetic spirits correspond to the generality of in-
dividuals ; that stranger spirits are attracted to it by
identity of tastes and thoughts, in a word, that these
assemblages, as well as individuals, are more or less
favorably surrounded, influenced, assisted, according
to the predominant character of the thoughts of those
who compose them. Among nations the conditions
which exercise an attractive action upon spirits are
the habits, manners and dominant characteristics of
their people and, above all, their legislation, because
the character of a nation is reflected in its laws.
Those who uphold the reign of righteousness among
themselves combat the influence of evil spirits.
Wherever the laws consecrate injustice, inhumanity,
good spirits are in the minority, and the mass of bad
ones who flock in, attracted by that state of things,
keep the people in their false ideas and paralyze the
good influences which, being only partial, are lost in
the crowd, like a solitary wheat ear in the midst of

SOUL EEINCARNATION. 245

tares. It is therefore easy, by studying the character
of nations, or of any assemblage of men, to form to
oneself an idea of the invisible population which is
mixed up with them in their thoughts and in their
actions.

PRESENTIMENT

Is a presentiment always a warning from the
spirit guardian ? you may ask. A presentiment is a
counsel privately addressed to you by a spirit who
wishes you well. The same may be said of the in-
tuition which decides the choice of his next existence
by a spirit about to reincarnate himself; the voice
of instinct is of the same nature. A spirit, before
incarnating himself, is aware of the principal phases
of his new existence, that is to say, of the kind of
trials to which he is about to subject himself. When
these are of a marked character he preserves, in his
inner consciousness, a sort of impression respecting
them, and this impression, which is the voice of in-
stinct, becoming more vivid as the critical moment
draws near, becomes presentiment. Whenever pre-
sentiments or impressions are somewhat vague or
you are not in doubt always invoke your Astral
Guides or spirit protectors or beseech and implore
the Almighty God, who is our common Master, to
send *to you a spirit guide or messenger. I will
teach you how to do this further on in these writings

246 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

of Spiritism. Warnings from Spirit Life are not
given solely for your moral guidance alone, but they
are given in reference to everything that concerns
you.

Your spirit guardians endeavor to lead you to
take, in regard to everything that you have to do,
the best possible course; but you often close your
ears to their friendly counsels and thus get your-
selves into trouble through your own fault. Our
protecting spirits aid us by their counsels and by
awakening the voice of our conscience ; but as we do
not always attach sufficient importance to these
hints, they give us more direct warnings through the
persons about us. Let a man reflect upon the vari-
ous circumstances of his life, fortunate or unfortu-
nate, and he will see that, on many occasions, he re-
ceived advice which, had he followed it, would have
spared him a good deal of annoyance. You erron-
eously imagine that the action of spirits can only be
manifested by extraordinary phenomena; you would
have spirits come to your aid by means of miracles,
and you imagine them to be always armed with a
sort of magic wand. Such is not the case; all that
is done though usually takes place without your being
aware of it. Thus, for instance, they bring about
the meeting of two persons who seem to have Jbeen
brought together by chance ; they suggest to the mind
of some one the idea of going in a particular direc-

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 247

tion. They call your attention to some special
point, if the action on your part thus led up to it by
their suggestion, unperceived by you, and will bring
about the result they seek to obtain. In this way,
each man supposes himself to be obeying only his
own impulse and thus always preserves the freedcwn
of his will. Spirits possess the power of acting
upon matter and they can bring about incidents that
will insure the accomplishment of a given event. As
an illustration, a person is destined to die in a certain
way, at a certain time. He gets into a boat and is
drowned. Spirits do not really upset the boat in
order to accomplish the destiny previously accepted
or imposed upon this man. For while spirits have
the power of acting upon matter and causing what is
termed in India "objective change" but only for the
carrying out of the laws of nature, and not for de-
rogating from them by causing the production at a
given moment of some unforeseen event, in opposi-
tion to these laws. In the case which I have cited,
the boat upturns because the waves are too rough for
it or the man within it is ignorant of the science of
handling it. But as it was the destiny of this man
to be killed in this way, the spirits about him will
have put into his mind the idea of getting into a boat
that will sink down under his weight and his death
will thus have taken place naturally and without any
miracle having been required to bring it about. Let

248 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

US take another illustration ; one in which the ordi-
nary conditions of matter would seem to be insuffi-
cient to account for the occurrence of a given event
A man is destined to be killed by lightning. He is
overtaken by a storm, and seeks refuge under a tree ;
the lightning strikes the tree, and he is killed. Is it
by spirits that the thunderbolt has been made to fall,
and to fall upon this particular man ?

The explanation of this case is the same as that of
the former one. The lightning has fallen on the tree
at this particular moment, because it was in accord-
ance with the laws of nature that it should do so.
The lightning was not made to fall upon the tree be-
cause the man was under it, but the man was inspired
with the idea of taking refuge under a tree upon
which the lightning was about to fall; for the tree
would have been struck all the same, whether the
man had been under it or not. An ill-intentioned
person hurls against some one a projectile which
passes close by him but does not touCh him. The
missile, in such a case, has been turned aside by some
friendly spirit, for if the individual aimed at were
not destined to be struck, a friendly spirit would
have suggested to him the thought of turning aside
from the path of the missile, or would have acted on
his enemy's sight in such a way as to make him take
a bad aim ; for a projectile, when once impelled on its
way, necessarily follows the line of its projection.

SOUL REINCARNATION. 249

•

Many evil spirits take pleasure in causing vexations
which serve as trials for the exercise of your pati-
ence ; but they tire of this game when they see that
they do not succeed in ruffling you. But it would
neither be just or correct to charge them with all
your disappointments, the greater number of which
are caused by your own heedlessness. When your
crockery is broken, the breakage is much more likely
to have been caused by your own awkwardness than
by spirit-action. There are some evil spirits who
annoy an individual and torment him from pure per-
sonal animosity. There are others who vex a per-
son without their having any particular reason or
aim simply to gratify their malice. In some cases
these spirits are enemies whom an individual has
made during his present earth life and who pursue
him accordingly; others act without any fixed mo-
tive. Those spirits or souls whom a man has
harmed while they lived in the body usually revenge
the wrong he has done them and in many cases they
continue to pursue him with their animosity, if God
permits them to do so, as a continuation of his trial,
and the only way for him to escape their persecution
is by praying for them, because by thus rendering
them good for evil, you gradually bring them to see
that they are in the wrong. And, in all cases, if you
can show them, by your patience, that you are able
to rise superior to their machinations they will cease

250 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

to attack you, seeing that they gain nothing by so
doing. Experience proves that imperfect spirits fol-
low up their vengeance from one existence to an-
other, and that we are thus made to expiate, sooner
or later, the wrong we may have done to others.
Know also, that it often depends on yourselves to
avert misfortunes, or, at least, to attenuate them.
God has given you intelligence in order that you
may make use of it, and it is especially by so doing
that you enable friendly spirits to aid you most ef-
fectually — ^viz., by suggesting useful ideas ; for they
only help those who help themselves : a truth implied
in the words, "Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it
shall be opened unto you," Besides, you must re-
member that what appears to you to be a misfortune
is not always such ; for the good which it is destined
to work out is often never recognized by you, be-
cause you are too apt to think only of the present
moment and of your own immediate satisfaction. It
is true that spirits can obtain gifts of fortune for a
person and direct them to hidden and buried treas-
ures, but after they have directed you and guided
you in a manner that you become wealthy and inde-
pendent and you fail to remember them or give
thanks by burning certain fumigations and giving up
certain secret invocations, and if this is not done
your future demands will be refused, as you yourself
would refuse the inconsiderate demands of a child,

SOUL EEINCARNATION. 251

for even the great God and Creator of the Universe,
who is a common Master of all mankind, will not
answer your pleadings unless you deserve them. The
above mentioned demands and favors are answered
by both good and evil spirits, for the quality, both
of the request and of the grant, depends on the in-
tention by which they are prompted. But such ac-
quiescence is more frequent on the part of spirits
who desire to lead you astray, and who find an easy
means of doing this through the material pleasures
procured by wealth. Many obstacles which seem to
be placed by fate in the way of our projects are
sometimes thrown in our way by evil spirits and
sometimes by good spirits, who know what is best
for us in the end. Again they are attributable to our
own bad management, judgment or decision. Posi-
tion and character and knowledge, especially of
Occult and Spiritual things, have everything to do
with our successes or failures, for if we persist in
following a path which is not a right one we ulti-
mately become our own evil genius, consequently
we cannot attribute to spirits the disappointments
that result from our own ignorance and mistakes.
If we are fortunate we should certainly by deep
meditation and prayer, both to God and the good
spirits of the Astral Plane, thank them. However, if
we neglect to do this our faith is that of the ungrate-
ful. You may say that there are individuals living

252 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

today on the earth plane who never pray or give
thanks, but are fortunate in everything that they un-
dertake, but my advice to you, and it is good, I ab-
sure you, is to wait until the end of their lives in the
body, for they shall surely pay dearly for their tem-
porary prosperity, which they do not deserve ; for the
more they have received and the more they have in-
dulged themselves at the expense of their fellow
beings the more they will have to answer for it.
Spirits exert an action over the phenomena of nature
and some act in one way while others are busy in
another. As an illustration, meditate to yourself on
the myriads of animalculae that build up islands and
archipelagoes in the midst of the sea ; do you believe
that there can be, in this process, no providential in-
tention, and that this transformation of the surface
of th^ globe is not necessary to the general harmony.
Yet all this is accomplished by animals of the lowest
degree in providing for their bodily wants and with-
out any consciousness of their being instruments of
God. In the same way spirits of the most rudimen-
tary degrees are useful to the general whole; while
preparing to live, and prior to their having the full
consciousness of their action and free will, they are
made to concur in the development of the various
departments of nature, in the production of the
phenomena of which they are the unwitting agents.
They begin by executing the orders of their super-

SOUL EEINCAENATION, 253

lors; subsequently, wheir their intelligence is more
developed, they command in their turn and direct the
processes of the material world ; still later again they
are able to direct the things of the moral world. It
is thus that everything in nature is linked together,
from the primitive atom to the archangel, who him-
self began at the atom; an admirable law of har-
mony which your mind is, as yet, too narrow to seize
in its generality.

In the case of those who are killed in
battle, as in all other cases of violent death, a
spirit, during the first few moments, is in a state of
bewilderment, and as though he were stunned. He
does not know that he is dead and seems to be taking
part in the action. It is only little by little that the
reality of his situation becomes apparent to him. A
soul, under such cirmcumstances, is never calm at
the first moment ; he may still be excited against his
enemy and even pursue him, but when he has re-
covered his self-possession he sees that his animosity
has no longer any motive. But he may neverthe-
less retain some traces of it for a longer or shorter
period, according to his character. Very few deaths
are altogether instantaneous. In most cases the spirit
whose body has just been mortally struck is not
aware of it for the moment ; it is when he begins to
come to himself that his spirit can be seen moving
beside his corpse. This appears so natural that the

254 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

sight of the dead body does not produce any dis-
agreeable effect. All the life of the individual being
concentrated in his spirit the latter alone attracts the
attention of the spirits about him. It is with him
that they converse, to him that orders are given.

PACTS WITH SPIRITS

Pacts with spirits of the Astral Plane is sympathy
between an evil nature and evil spirits. For example,
you wish to torment your neighbor, but you know
not how to set about it, and you therefore call to
your help some of the inferior spirits, who, like your-
self, only desire to do evil, and who in return for the
help they give you in carrying out your wicked de-
signs expect you to help them with theirs. But it
does not follow that your neighbor will not be able
to get rid of such a conspiracy by an opposing con-
juration and the action of his will. He who desires
to do an evil deed calls evil spirits to his assistance
by that mere desire, and he is then obliged to serve
them as they have served him, for they, on their side,
have need of his help in the evil they desire to do.
What you call a pact consists simply in this recipro-
city of assistance in evil. The subjection to evil
spirits in which a man sometimes finds himself pro-
ceeds from this abandoning himself to the evil
thoughts suggested by them and not from any sort
of stipulations between them and him. The idea of a

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 255

pact in the sense commonly attached to that word
is a figurative representation of the sympathy which
exists between a bad man and malicious spirits. The
meaning of the fantastic legends of persons selling
their soul to Satan in order to obtain from him cer-
tain favors is that all fables contain a teaching and
a moral; your mistake is in taking them literally.
The one referred to is an allegory and is thus ex-
plained : He who calls evil spirits to his aid in order
to obtain from them the gifts of fortune or any other
favors rebels against Providence. He draws back
from the mission he has received and from the trials
he was to have undergone in his earthly life, and he
will reap the consequences of his rebellion in the life
to come. By this we do not mean to say that his soul
is condemned to misery forever; but, as instead of
detaching himself from matter, he plunges himself
deeper and deeper into it, his enjoyment of earthly
pleasures will only have led to his suffering to the
spirit world, until he shall have redeemed himself
from the thraldom of evil by new trials, perhaps
heavier and more painful than those against which
he now rebels. Through his indulgence in material
pleasures he brings himself under the power of im-
pure spirits and thus establishes between them and
him a tacit compact which leads him to his ruin, but
which it is always easy for him to break with the
assistance of higher spirits if he have the firm deter-
mination to do so.

CHAPTER XIII.

SORCERERS AND CONJURORS OF SPIRITS

A bad man with the aid of evil spirits under his
orders can cause harm to his neighbors, and certain
persons who possess strong Occult and Magnetic
Powers of which they may make bad use are always
seconded by evil spirits. The existence of these
powers have been demonstrated, as there are spirits
who give secret signs and words and direct certain
acts and with the aid of a sorcerer can perform cer-
tain things. It is possible when a person confides
and believes in a certain talisman to attract a spirit
to him that will assist in performing what he desires,
as a talisman has virtue and is a sign which assists
both the spirit and a conjuror to concentrate their
Occult power and bring about certain things. Those
who are called sorcerers and conjurors of spirits
are persons possessed with certain exceptional Occult
Powers and you may not be amazed if such persons
perform and bring about things that you do not
comprehend. Occult powers are possessed by some
to cure disease and is known as the gift of healing,
and has very great action when seconded by purity

258 DEATH AND HIx\DU SPIEITISM.

of intention of soul and an ardent desire to relieve
the suffering and infliction. Benedictions and curses
have certain virtue, as the soul of man is subjected
to opposite influences which are both good and evil.
A curse has also a decided action even upon matter
and this action when it takes place is an increase of
a trial for him who is its object. Curses are usually
bestowed on the wicked and benedictions on the
good. But neither blessing nor cursing can ever
turn aside the justice of Providence, which only
strikes the one who is cursed if he is wicked and only
favor the one who is blessed if he merits its protec-
tion. Spirits besides working out their own personal
amelioration co-operate in the production of har-
mony of the universe by executing the volitions of
God, whose ministers they are. Spirit life is a con-
tinual occjipation, but one that has nothing in com-
mon with the painful labor of the earthly life, be-
cause there is in it no bodily fatigue nor the anguish
of bodily wants. Inferior and evil spirits all have
duties to fulfill, as does the lowest mason, as does the
lowest apprentice in the construction of a building,
which is as useful as that of the architect. Spirits
inhabit all regions and acquire the knowledge of all
things, but as is taught in Hindu Sancrit there is a
spirit and a time for everything. Thus one spirit is
perfect, another will accomplish his amelioration or
has already accomplished it at another period, upon

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 280

the earth, in the water, in the air, etc. All spirits
have to ascend all the steps of the ladder in order
to attain perfection. God, who is just, is not willed
to give science to some without labor, while others
only acquire it through painful effort Thus, among
men, no one arrives .at the highest degree of skill
in any art without having acquired the necessary
knowledge through the practice of that art in all its
degrees from the lowest upwards. Spirits of the
highest order do not enter a state of absolute repose,
as nothing can remain idle throughout eternity, for
eternal idleness would be eternal torture and all spir-
its are incessantly occupied. That is to say, that
their thoughts are always active, for living as they
do a spiritual existence they live only in thought
and mental activity. Their activity is itself a delight
through the consciousness they have of being useful.
This is easily understood as regards good spirits, but
it is the same in regard to inferior spirits. Inferior
spirits have occupations suitable to their nature.
Would you entrust intellectual undertakings to an
ignorant soul. Of course there are some spirits who
do not employ themselves always in something use-
ful and at times are idle, but this idleness is only
temporary and depends on the development of their
intelligence. Certainly there are among spirits, as
among men, some who live only for themselves, but
their idleness weighs upon them, and, sooner or

260 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

later^ the desire to advance causes them to feel the
need of activity and they are glad to make them-
selves useful. I speak of spirits who have arrived at
the point at which they possess self-consciousness
and free will, for, at their origin, they are like new-
born children and act more from instinct than from
a determinate will.

CLASSIFICATION OF SPIRITS

Th<e classification of spirits is based upon the de-
gree of their advancement, upon the qualities which
they have acquired, and upon the imperfections from
which they have still to free themselves. This classi-
fication, however, is by no means absolute. It is
only in its totality that the character of each category
is distinctly marked for each category merges in
the one above it by imperceptible gradations, the
peculiarities of the successive categories shading off
into one another at their extremities, as in the case
in the various reigns of nature, in the colors of the
rainbow, in the phases of a human life. Spirits may,
therefore, be divided into a number of classes more
or less considerable, according to the point of view
which we consider the subject. It is in this matter
as in all other systems of scientific classifications.
The systems adopted may be more or less complete,
more or less rational, more or less convenient for the
understandihgijbut whatever may be their form they

SOUL REINCARNATION. 281

change nothing in regard to the facts of the science
which employs them. That the answers of spirits,
when questioned on this point, should vary as to the
number of the categories into which they are divided
is, therefore, a matter of no practical importance.
Too much weight has been attributed to this ap-
parent contradiction by those who forget that dis-
incarnate intelligences attach no importance what-
ever to mere conventionalities. For them the mean-
ing of a statement is the only important point about
it. They leave to man the question of its form, the
choice of terms and of classification, in a word, all
that belongs to the making of system.

Another thing that should never be lost sight of
is the fact that there are among spirits, as well as
men, some who are ignorant, and that we cannot be
too much on guard against a tendency to believe that
all spirits know everything simply because they are
spirits. The work of classification demands method,
analysis and a thorough knowledge of the subject in-
vestigated. But those who, in the spirit world, pos-
sess only a small amount of knowledge, are as in-
competent as are ignorant human beings to embrace
the whole of any subject or to formulate a system.
They have no idea, or but a very, irpper feet one, of
any sort of classification. All spirits superior to
themselves appear to them to be of the highest order,
for they are as incapable of discriminating the

262 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

various shades of knowledge, capacity and morality
by which they are distinguished as one of our sav-
ages would be to discriminate the various character-
istics of civilized men. Those who are capable of
this discrimination may vary, in their appreciation
of details, according to their special point of view,
especially in regard to a matter which, from its very
nature, has nothing fixed or absolutely about it.
Linnaeus, Jussieu, Toumefort, have each their spe-
cial system of classification, but the nature of botany
has not been changed by this diversity of system
among botanists. The latter have not invented either
plants or their characteristics ; they have merely ob-
served certain analogies, according to which they
have formed certain groups or classes. I have pro-
ceeded in the same way. I have not invented either
spirits or their characteristics. I have seen and ob-
served them, I have judged them by their own words
and acts and I have classed them by order of simili-
tude, basing my classification on the data furnished
by themselves. The higher spirits generally admit
the existence of three principal categories, or main
divisions, among the people of the other world. In
the lowest of these, at the bottom of the ladder, are
the imperfect spirits, who are characterized by the
predominance of the instincts of materiality over the
moral nature and by the propensity to evil. Those
of the second degree are characterized by the pre-

SOUL BETNCABNATION. 203

dominance of the moral nature over the material
instincts and by the desire of good. They constitute
the category of good spirits. The first or highest
category consists of those who have reached the state
of pure spirits and have thus attained to the supreme
degree of perfection imaginable by us. This division
of spirits into three well-marked categories appears
to me to be perfectly rational ; and, having arrived
at this general classification, it only remained for me
to bring out, through a sufficient number of subdivi-
sions, the principal shades of the three great spirits
categories thus established. And this I have done
with the aid of the spirits themselves, whose friendly
instructions have never failed me in carrying out
the work upon which I have been led to enter.

CHAPTER XIV.

REVEALING THE FUTURE

The future life with its happenings and events is
always hidden from the blind materialists, but this
in itself is a wise provision and the future is never
opened to any man unless he has developed his inner
or spiritual sights and this is a provision of God, for
if man knew the future he would neglect the present
and would not act with the same freedom, because he
would be swayed by the thought that if such and
such a thing is to happen there is no need to occupy
one*s self about it, or else he would seek to prevent it.
God has willed that it should not be thus in order
that each may concur in the accomplishment of the
designs of Providence, even of those which He
would desire to thwart; and thus you, yourselves,
often prepare the way, without your knowing it, for
the events that will occur in the course of your life.

The reason why the future is sometimes revealed
to certain people by and through those who are
clairvoyant is because that in such cases this fore-
knowledge, instead of hindering the accomplishment
of the thing that is to be will facilitate it by inducing

266 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

the person to whom it is revealed to act in a different
way from that in which he would otherwise have
acted. And, besides, it is often a trial. The prospect
of an event may awaken thoughts more or less vir-
tuous. If a man becomes aware, for instance, that
he will succeed to an inheritance which he had not
expected he may be tempted by a feeling of cupidity
or elation at the prospect of adding to his earthly
pleasures by a desire for the death of him to whose
fortune he will succeed in order that he may obtain
possession of it more speedily ; or, on the other hand,
this prospect may awaken in him only good and
generous thoughts. If the prediction be not fulfilled
it is another trial, viz., that of the way in which he
will bear the disappointment, but he will none the
less have acquired the merit or the blame of the good
or bad thoughts awakened in him by his expectation
of the event predicted.

The spirits of the Astral Plane know everything.
They know whether a man will or will not fail in
anything which he begins. Where then is the use
of this trial since it can show God nothing that He
does not already know in regard to that man?

You may as well ask why God did not create man
accomplished, perfect, or why man has to pass
through childhood before arriving at an adult age.
The aim of trial is not to enlighten God in regard
to man's deserts, for God knows exactly what they

SOUL REINCABNATION. 267

are, but to leave to man the entire responsibility of
his conduct, since he is free to do or not to do. Man
having free choice between good and evil, trial serves
to bring him under the action of temptation, and
thus to give him the merit of resistance; for God,
though knowing beforehand whether he will tritunph
or succumb, cannot, being just, either reward or
punish him otherwise than according^ to the deeds
he has done.

The same principle is practically admitted among
men. Whatever may be the qualifications of a can-
didate for any distinction, whatever may be our con-
fidence of his success, no grade can be conferred on
him without his having undergone the prescribed
examination, that is to say, without his deserts hav-
ing been tested by trial, just as a judge only con-
demns the accused for the crime he has actually com-
mitted, and not on the presumption that he could or
would commit such crime. The more you reflect on
the consequences that would result from your knowl-
edge of the future the more clearly will you see the
wisdom of Providence in hiding it from you. The
certainty of your future good fortune would render
you inactive; that of coming misfortune would
plunge you in discouragement; in both cases your
activities would be paralyzed. For this reason the
future is only known to man as an end which he
is to attain through his own efforts, but without

268 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

knowing the sequence of events through which he
will pass in attaining it. The foreknowledge of all
the incidents of his journey would deprive him of
his initiative and of the use of his free will ; he would
let himself be drawn, passively, by the force of
events down the slope of circumstances without any
exercise of his faculties. When the success of a
matter is certain you no longer busy yourselves
about it.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLANETS BY

ASTRAL SPIRITS

According to the statements of Astral Spirits this
planet, as regards the physical and moral qualities of
its inhabitants, is one of the least advanced of all
the globes of our solar system. Mars is stated to
be at a point even lower than that of the earth, and
Jupiter to be greatly superior to the earth in every
respect. The sun is not a world inhabited by cor-
poreal beings, but is a place of meeting for the spirits
of a higher order, who from thence send out the
radiations of their thought toward the outer worlds
of the solar system, which they govern through the
instrumentality of spirits of a less elevated degree, to
whom they transmit their action by the intermediary
of the universal fluid. As regards its physical con-
stitution the sun would appear to be a focus of elec-

SOUL BEING ABNATION. 269

tricity, and all other suns seem to be identical with
ours in nature and function.

The size of planets and their distance from the
sun have no necessary relation with their degree of
advancement, for Venus is more advanced than the
earth and Saturn is declared to be less advanced than
Jupiter.

The souls of many persons well known in this
earth are reincarnated in Jupiter, one of the worlds
nearest to perfection, and much surprise has been
felt on hearing it stated that persons who, when here,
were not supposed to merit such a favor should have
been admitted into so advanced a globe. But there
is nothing in this fact that need surprise us if we
consider, first, that certain spirits who have inhabited
this planet may have been sent hither in fulfillments
of a mission which, to our eyes, did not seem to place
them in the foremost rank ; secondly, that they may
have had, between their lives and here and in Jupiter,
intermediary existences in which they have ad-
vanced, and thirdly, that there are innumerable de-
grees of development in that world as in this one,
and that there may be as much difference between
these degrees as there is amongst us between the
savage and the civilized man. It no more follows
that a spirit is on a level with the most advanced
beings of Jupiter because he inhabits that planet than

270 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

it follows that an ignoramus is on a level with a
philosopher because he inhabits the same town.

The conditions of longevity, also, are as various
in other worlds as they are in our earth, and no com-
parison can be established between the ages of those
who inhabit them. A person who had died some
years previously, on being evoked by a Hindu,
stated that he had been incarnated for six months
in a world which the nam^ is unknown to us. Being
questioned as to his age in that world he replied,
"That is a point which I am unable to decide, because
in the first place we do not count time in the same
way as you do, and in the next place our mode of
existence is not the same as yours. Our development
is much more rapid in this world, for, although it is
only six of your months since I came here, I may
say that, as r^^rds intelligence, I am about wliat
one usually is at the age of thirty in your earth."

A great number of similar replies have been given
by other spirits, and these statements contain noth-
ing improbable. Do we not see upon our earth a
host of animals that acquire their normal develop-
ment in the course of a few months ? Why should
not men do the same in other spheres ? And it is to
be remarked, moreover, that the degree of develop-
ment acquired by a man at the age of thirty upon the
earth may be only a sort of infancy in comparison
with what he is destined to arrive at in worlds of

SOUL EEINCAKNATION. 271

higher degree. Short-sighted indeed are they who
look upon their present selves as being in all respects
the normal type of creation, and to suppose that there
can be no other modes of existence than their present
one is, in short, a strange narrowing of their idea of
the possibilities of the Divine action.

The life of a spirit in his totality goes through
successive phases similar to those of a corporeal life-
time. He passes gradually from the embryonic state
fo that of infancy, and arrives, through a succession
of periods at the adult state, which is that of his per-
fection, with this difference, however, that it is not
subject either to decrepitude or to decline, like the
corporeal life ; that the life of a spirit, though it has
had a beginning, will have no end; that he takes
what appears from your point of view to be an im-
mense length of time of passing from the state of
spirit infancy to the attainment of his complete de-
velopment, and that he accomplishes this progres-
sion, not in one and the same sphere, but by passing
through different worlds. The life of a spirit is thus
composed of a series of days, in each of which he
acquires a new increment of experience and of
knowledge. But just as in a human lifetime there
are days which bear no fruit, so in the life of a spirit
there are corporeal existences which are barren of
profitable result, because he has failed to make the
right use of them.

272 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM. *

The line of march of all spirits is always progres-
sive, never retrograde. They raise themselves grad-
ually in the hierarchy of existence; they never de-
scend from the rank at which they have once arrived.
In the course of their different corporeal existences
they may descend in a rank as man, but not as spirits.
Thus the soul of one who haa been at the pinnacle
of earthly power may, in a subsequent incarnation,
animate the humblest day laborer, and vice versa, for
the elevation of ranks among men is often in the
inverse ration of that of the moral sentiments.
Herod was a king, and Jesus a carpenter. The cer-
tainty of man's being able to improve himself in a
future existence would not in itself lead him to per-
sist in an evil course by thinking that he will at some
period be able to make amends. For he who made
such a calculation would have no real belief in any-
thing, and such a one would not be any more re-
strained by the idea of incurring eternal punishment,
because his reason would reject that idea, which
leads to every sort of unbelief. An imperfect spirit,
it is true, might reason in that way during his cor-
poreal life, but when he is freed from his material
body he thinks very differently, for he soon perceives
that he has made a great mistake in his calculations,
and this perception causes him to carry an opposite
sentiment into his next incarnation. It is thus that
progress is accomplished, and it is thus also that you

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 273

have upon the earth some men who are farther ad-
vanced than others who have not yet acquired knowl-
edge^ but will be gradually acquired by them. It
depends greatly upon each spirit^ to hasten his own
advancement or to retard it indefinitely. The man
who has an unsatisfactory position desires to change
it as soon as possible. He who is convinced that the
tribulations of the present life are the consequences
of his own imperfections will seek to insure for him-
self a new existence of a less painful character, and
this conviction will draw him away from the wrong
road much more effectually than the threat of eternal
flames, which he does not believe in, Man's spirit or
soul influences his body, for the soul is everything,
the physical body simply a house for its earthly habi-
tation, a something that is subject to the physical
laws of decomposition. Nothing more.

A material illtfetration of the various degrees of
purification of the soul is furnished by the juice of
the grape. It contains the liquid called spirit of al-
cohol, but is weakened by the presence of various
foreign elements which change its nature, so that it
is only brought to a state of absolute purity after
several distillations, at each of which it is cleared
of some portion of its impurity. The still represents
the corporeal body, into which the spirit or soul en-
ters for its purification ; the foreign elements repre-
sent the imperfections from which the perispirit is

274 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

gradually freed, in proportion as the spirit ap-
proaches the state of relative perfection.

SPIRIT OF A CHILD WHO DIES

IN INFANCY

The soul of a spirit or of a child who dies in in-
fancy advances in spirit life greater than does that of
an adult, for this soul may have previously lived
longer and acquired more experience before its birth
on earth and consequently has already made consid-
erable progress, and the spirit of a child may advance
more rapidly in spirit life than that of its parents.
Many may think that the spirit of a child who has
died in infancy without having been able to commit
any evil belongs to the higher spirit realms, for if
this soul has committed no evil it has also done noth-
ing good, and God does not exonerate it from the
trials which it has to undergo^ and if this spirit be-
longs to high degree it is not because it has manifested
itself on earth in a child, but because it has achieved
that degree of advancement as a result of its previous
experience. Many may wonder why the life of a
child is cut short. The duration of the life of an
infant may be for the spirit thus incarnated, and the
completement of an existence interrupted before its
appointed time and its death is often a trial or an
expiration for its parents. The spirit of an infant

SOUL REINCARNATION. 276

who dies recommences a new and better existence,
for if man had but a single existence and if after
this existence his future state were fixed for all
eternity, by what standard of merit could eternity be
adjudged to that of the human race which dies in
childhood, and by what right would it be exoner-
ated from the conditions of progress, often so pain-
ful, imposed on the other half ? Such an ordering
could not be reconciled with the justice of God.
Through the reincarnation of spirits the most abso-
lute justice is equally meted out to all. The possi-*
bilities of the future are open to all without excep-
tion and without favor to any. Those who are the
last to arrive have only themselves to blame for the
delay. Each man must merit happiness by his own
right action, as he has to bear the consequences of
his own wrongdoing. It is, moreover, most irra-
tional to consider childhood as a normal state of
innocence. Do we not see children endowed with
the vilest instincts at an age at which even the most
vicious surroundings cannot have b^gun to exercise
any influence upon them ? Do we not see many who
seem to bring with them at birth cunning, falseness,
perfidy and even the instincts of thieving and mur-
der, and this in spite of the good examples by which
they are surrounded? Human law absolves them
from their misdeeds, because it regards them as hav-
ing acted without discernment, and it is right in

276 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

doing SO, for they really act instinctively rather than
from deliberate intent But whence proceed the in-
stinctual differences observable in children of the
same age, brought up amidst the same conditions
and subjected to the same influences ? Whence
comes this precocious perversity if not from the in-
feriority of the spirit himself, since education has
had nothing to do with producing it? Those who
are vicious are so because their spirit has made less
progress; and, that being the case, each will have to
suffer the consequences of his inferiority, not on
account of his wrongdoing as a child, but as the re-
sult of his evil course in his former existences. \nd
thus the action of providential law is the same for
each, and the justice of God reaches eqtially to all.

SEX OF SPIRITS

Spirits do not have sex, as this term is used upon
the Earth Plane, for sex in that sense depends on
the corporeal organization. Love, Affection and
Sympathy, it is true, exist among spirits, but is
founded on similarity of sentiments, and the spirit
who has animated the body of a man may animate
the body of a woman in a future existence and vice
versa. It may be asked does a spirit when existing
in spirit world prefer to be incarnated as a man or
as a woman, but to this a spirit is indifferent, and
the point is always decided in view of the trials

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 277

which it has to undergo in its new earth life, and
spirits incarnate themselves as men or as women, be-
cause they are of no sex, and as it is necessary for
them to develop themselves in every direction. Both
sexes, as well as every variety of social position, fur-
nish them with special trials and duties and with the
opportunity of acquiring experience. A spirit who
has always incarnated itself as a man would only
know what is known by men, and vice versa.

MORAL LIKENESS

The spirit and soul of parents are not without -in-
fluence upon the soul of their offspring after its
birth, as they exercise on the contrary a very great
influence upon it. As I have already told you spirits
are made to conduce to one another's progress. To
the spirits of the parents is confided the mission of
developing those of their children by the training
they give them. It is a task which is appointed to
them, and which they cannot without guilt fail to
fulfill. You may ask how is it that good and vir-
tuous parents often give birth to children of perverse
and evil nature ? In other words, how is it that good
qualities of the parents do not always attract to them
through S3rmpathy a good spirit to animate their
child. A wicked spirit may ask to be allowed to
have virtuous parents, in the hope that their counsels
may help to amend his ways, and God often confides

278 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

such a one to the care of virtuous persons in order
that he may be benefited by their affection and care.
Parents cannot by their intentions and prayers at-
tract a good spirit into the body of their offspring
instead of an inferior spirit, but they can improve
the spirit of the child whom they have brought into
the world and who is confided to them for that pur-
pose. It is their duty to do this, but bad children
are often sent as a trial for the improvement of the
parents also. The similarity of character often no*
ticed among brothers and sisters, especially so be-
tween twins, is owing to the sympathy of two spirits
who have been attracted by the similarity of their
sentiments and who desire to be together and who
are thus made happy. Aversion is sometimes felt
betwteen brothers and sisters and twins for one
another owing to the fact that the bad spirits have
been brought into this relation to improve them.
Spirits constitute different families, formed by the
similarity of their tendencies, which are more or less
purified according to their elevation. Each body is
a great family formed by the assembling together
of sympathetic spirits. The tendency of the mem-
bers of these families to unite together is the source
of the resemblance which constitutes the distinctive
character of each people. Do you suppose that good
and benevolent spirits would seek to incarnate them-
selves among rude and brutal people. No, spirits

SOUL BEINCARNATION. 279

sympathize with masses of men as they sympathize
with individuals. They go to the region of the earth
with which they are most in harmony.

CHAPTER XV.

LOSS OF THOSE WE LOVE

Many think that the loss through death of a loved
one who is near and dear to us is a legitimate
source of sorrow, as this loss is both irreparable and
independent of our action, but this cause for an event
of great sorrow, which acts alike upon the rich and
poor, is the common law of humanity, for it is either
a trial or an expiation, but you have the consolation
of holding communication with your friends through
the means already possessed by you, while awaiting
other pieans that will be more direct and more ac-
cessible to your senses. There are many who think
that spirit communication with the souls of the dead
is a profanation, but these wise ones should learn
that there can be no sin or wrong where there is
reverent concentration of thought and S3mipathy and
when spirits are invoked or conjured with fitting re-
spect there is no sin, and the proof of this statement
is found in the fact that the spirits who love you take
pleasure in coming to you; they rejoice in being
remembered by you and in being able to converse
with you. But there would be profanation in this j

282 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

communication if carried on in a spirit of frivolity.
Again the possibility of entering intO communication
with spirits is most consoling, since it gives us the
means of holding converse with those of relatives
and friends who have quitted the earthly life before
us. By our evocation we draw them nearer to us ;
they come to our side, hear us and reply to us ; there
is, so to say, no longer any separation between them
and us. They aid us with their counsels, and assure
us of the pleasure afforded them by our remem-
brance. It is a satisfaction for us to know that they
are happy to learn from themselves the details of
their new existence, and to acquire the certainty of
our rejoining them in our turn. The effect of the in-
consolable sorrow of those who survive their loved
ones is very disappointing to a spirit or soul which
has passed out of the body; of course every spirit
and soul is touched by the remembrance of sorrow
and regret of those whom it has loved during its
earth life; but a persistent and unreasonable sorrow
affects him painfully, because he sees, in this exces-
sive grief, a want of faith in the future and of confi-
dence in God, and consequently, an obstacle to the
advancement of the mourner, and, perhaps, to their
reunion.

A spirit when disincamated, being happier than
he was upon the earth, to regret his change of life is
to regret his being happy. Two friends are prison-

SOUL REINCABNATION. 288

ers, shut up in the same dungeon ; both of them are
some day to be set at liberty, but one of them obtains
his deliverance before the other. Would it be kind
on the part of him who remains in prison to regret
that his friend has been set at liberty before him?
Would there not be on his part more selfishness than
affection in wishing his friend to remain in captivity
and suffering as long as himself? It is the same
with two persons who love one another upon the
earth; he who quits it first is the first delivered; and
the other ought to rejoice in his deliverance, while
awaiting with patience the moment when he shall be
delivered in his turn.

We may illustrate this subject by another com-
parison. You have a friend whose situation, while
remaining near you, is a painful one; his health or
his interests require that he should go to another
country, where he will be better off in every respect.
He will no longer be near you at every moment, but
you will be still in correspondence with him ; the sep-
aration between you will be only in your daily life.
Should you grieve for his removal, since it is for his
good?

By the evident proofs which it gives us of the real-
ity of the future life, and of the presence about us
and the continued affection and solicitude of those
we have loved, as well as by the relations which it
enables us to keep up with them, Spiritism offers us

284 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITI8M.

the most effectual consolation under the greatest and
most painful of earthly sorrows; it does away with
solitude and separation, for it shows us that the most
isolated of human beings is always surrounded by a
host of friends, with whom he can hold affectionate
converse.

We are often impatient under the tribulations of
life ; they seem to us so intolerable that we cannot be-
lieve it to be possible for us to bear up under
them ; and yet> if we have borne them with courage,
if we have been able to silence our murmurings, we
shall rejoice to have undergone them, when we have
finished our earthly career, as the patient rejoices,
when convalescent, to have resigned himself to the
painful course of treatment that has cured him of his
malady.

186 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

THE ANCIENT ADEPT.

An Adept unto his Chelas long endeared,

In teachings Ancient, whose striking, snowy heard

Flows o*er his Robes, whose intelligent face add

To dignity; in robes of Occult clad.

In duty to fulfill an Ancient Obligation,

Of Spirits law, — ere man's declaration,

Or joining issues, thai the Adept should stand.

To give Occult teachings of spiritual Peace.

— Dr. de Laurence.

CHAPTER XVL

RESURRECTION OF THE BODY

The doctrine of the resurrection of the body is an
implication of that of reincarnation, as now taught
by spirits, for it could not be otherwise, and it is in
regard to that expression as to many others and only
appear unreasonable because they are taken literally,
and are thus placed beyond the pale of credibility ;
let them only be rationally explained, and those
whom you call free-thinkers will admit them with-
out difficulty, precisely because they are accustomed
to reflect. Free-thinkers, like the rest of the world,
perhaps even more than others, thirst for a future;
they ask nothing better than to believe, but they can-
not admit what is disproved of by science. The doc-
trine of the plurality of existence is conformable with
the justice of God ; it alone can explain what, with-
out it, is inexplicable ; how can you doubt, then, that
its principle is to be found in all religions?

Orthodox religion teaches the dogma of the resur-
rection of the body, but in reality it teaches the
doctrine of reincarnation. This is very evident, but
the Western Church will soon see that the reincarna-

288 BEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

tion of the soul is implied in every part of the Holy
Scriptures, for Spirits do not come to overthrow re-
ligion by their teachings as many assert They
come, on the contrary, to confirm it and sanction
it by irrefragable proofs. Spirits invoked by the
Hindus renounce the use of figurative language,
they speak without allegories, and give to every
statement a clear and precise meaning that obviates
all danger of false interpretation. For this reason
there will be, ere long, a greater number of persons
sincerely religious and really believing than are to
be found at the present day.

Physical Science demonstrates the impossibility of
resurrection according to the common idea. If the
relics of the human body remained homogeneous,
even though dispersed and reduced to powder, we
might conceive the possibility of their being reunited
at some future time ; but such is not the case. The
body is formed of various elements— oxygen, hydro-
gen, azote, carbon, etc., and these elements, being
dispersed, serve to form new bodies, so that the
same molecule of carbon, for example, will have en-
tered into the composition of many thousands of dif-
ferent bodies (we speak only of human bodies, with-
out counting those of animals) ; such and such an
individual may have, in his body, molecules that were
in the bodies of men of the earliest ages; and the
very same organic molecules that you have this day

SOUL EEINCAENATION.. 289

observed in your blood may have come from the body
of some one whom you have known; and so on.
Matter being finite in quantity, and its transforma-
tions being infinite in number, how is it possible that
the innumerable bodies formed out of it should be
reconstituted with the same elements? Such a re-
construction is a physical impossibility. The resur-
rection of the body can, therefore, be rationally
admitted only as a figure of speech, symbolizing the
fact of reincarnation; thus interpreted, it has in it
nothing repugnant to reason, nothing contrary to the
data of physical science.

THEOLOGICAL DOGMA

It is true that, according to the theological dogma,
this resurrection is not to take place until the "Last
Day," while, according to spiritist doctrine, it takes
place every day ; but is not this picture of "The Last
Day Judgment' a grand and noble metaphor, imply-
ing, under the veil of allegory, one of those im-
mutable truths that will no longer be met with in-
credulity when restored to their true meaning? To
those who carefully ponder the spiritist theory of the
future destiny of souls, and of the fate that awaits
them as the result of the various trials they have to
undergo, it will be apparent that, with the exception
of the condition of simultaneousness, the judgment
which condemns or absolves them is not a fiction, as

290 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

is supposed by unbelievers. It is also to be remarked
that the judgment which assigns to each soul its next
place of habitation is the natural consequence of the
plurality of worlds, now generally admitted ; while,
according to the doctrine of the "Last Judgment,"
the earth is supposed to be the only inhabited world.

THE DISCIPLE OF OCCULTISM.

I recognize a power, subtle, deep,
Disturbing, and aggressive, which shall sweep,
All Materialism down"
A strange power through me thrilling.
Almost too marvelous to utter. Ailing
My heart with awe; a reverence o'er me stealing
For what I see before, quite clear revealing
That I, to-day, upon the threshold standing
Of some new era, change complete demanding.
In methods old, of thought; and this assembling,
From Spirit life, shows human creeds are trem-
bling;
My soul quivers, the material bonds are breaking,
Occult Powers are hastening; history is making,

— Dr. de Laurence.

298 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

OCCULT TEACHINGS.

The Occult teachings of India's former dispensa-
tion.

The History of Thibet, India and China's conser-
vatism,

Their origin and future, have outlined

With no Occult Knowledge undefined,

— Dr. de Laurence.

CHAPTER XVII.

EARTHLY JOYS AND SORROWS

Human souls during their existence on the Earth
Plane are often the cause and in reality are the
artisans of their own bodily afflictions and affections ;
they are also the instigators and the artisans of their
moral sufferings. Even more so, for their worldly
sufferings are often independent of their action ; but
it is wounded pride, disappointed ambition, the anx-
ieties of avarice, envy, jealousy, all the passions, in
short, that constitute the torments of the soul.

Envy and jealousy! Happy are they who know
not those two gnawing worms. Where envy and
jealousy exist, there can be no calm, no repose. Be-
fore him who is the slave of those passions, the ob-
jects of his longings, of his hatreds, of his anger,
stand like so many phantoms, pursuing him without
respite, even in his sleep. The envious and jealous
are always in a fever. Is such a state a desirable
one? Can you not understand that, with such pas-
sions, man creates for himself the most terrible tor-
tures, and that the earth really becomes a hell for
him?

294 DEATH AND HINDU SFIBITISM.

Many of our colloquial expressions present vivid
pictures of the effects of the different passions. We
say, "puffed up with pride," "dying with envy,"
"bursting with spite," "devoured by jealousy," pic-
tures that are only too true to their originals.
In many cases, these evil passions have no determi-
nate object. There are persons, for instance, who
are naturally jealous of every one who rises, of
everything that oversteps the common line, even
when their own interest is in no way concerned, and
simply because they are not able to command a sim-
ilar success. Every manifestation of superiority on
the part of others is regarded by them as an offense
to themselves ; for the jealousy of mediocrity would
always, if it could, bring every one down to its own
level.

DISAPPOINTED AMBITION

Much of the unhappiness of human life is a result
of the undue importance attached by man to the
things of this world ; vanity, disappointed ambition,
and cupidity, make up no small part of his troubles.
If he placed his aims beyond the narrow circle of his
outer life, if he raised his thoughts toward the in-
finite that is his destiny, the vicissitudes of human
existence would seem to him as petty and puerile as
the broken toy over the loss of which the child weeps
so bitterly. He who finds his happiness only in the

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 295

satisfaction of pride and of gross material appetites,
is unhappy when he cannot satisfy them; while he
who asks for no superfluities is happy under circum-
stances that would be deemed calamitous by others.
We are now speaking of the civilized people, for the
savage, having fewer wants, has not the same incite-
ments to envy and anxiety; his way of looking at
things is altogether different. In the civilized state,
man reasons upon and analyzes his unhappiness, and
is therefore all the more painfully affected by it ; but
he may also reason upon and analyze the means of
consolation within his reach. This consolation is
furnished him by Christianity, which gives him the
hope of a better future, and by Spiritism, which
gives him the certainty of that future.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PARADISE, HELL AND PURGATORY

The joys and sorrows of spirits are inherent in the
degree of perfection at which they have arrived.
Each spirit finds in himself the principal of his hap-
piness or unhappiness; and, as spirits are every-
where, no enclosed or circumscribed place is set apart
for either the one or the other. As for incarnated
spirits, they are more or less happy or unhappy, ac-
cording as the world they inhabit is more or less
advanced.

"Heaven" and "Hell," as men have imagined
them, have no existence; they are only symbols;
there are happy and unhappy spirits everywhere.
Nevertheless, as I have told you, spirits of the same
order are brought together by sympathy ; but, when
they are perfect, they can meet together wherever
they will.

The localization of rewards and punishments in
fixed places exists only in man's imagination ; it pro-
ceeds from his tendency to materialize and to cir-
cumscribe the things of which he cannot comprehend
the essential infinitude. The word purgatory in its

298 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

true meaning refers to the physical and moral suffer-
ing of man on the earth plane, and is the period of
expiation, for it is generally the rule that man is
forced to undergo purgatory and to expiate his
wrongdoing while in the physical body.

What men call purgatory is also a figure of speech,
that should be understood as signifying, not any
determinate place, but the state of imperfect spirits
who have to expiate their faults until they have at-
tained the complete purification that will raise them
to the state of perfect blessedness. As this purifica-
tion is effected by means of various incarnations,
purgatory consists in the trials of corporeal life.

Many may ask why spirits who seem to be of high
degree reply according to the commonly received
ideas of those who question them, in the most seri-
ous spirit concerning hell and purgatory. The rea-
son of this is that when the latter are too fully im-
bued with preconceived ideas they do not care to
interrupt their convictions, for if a spirit should tell
a Mussulman, without proper precaution, that Ma-
homet was not a true prophet, he would not be lis-
tened to with much cordiality.

Such precautions are conceivable on the part of
spirits who wish to instruct us; but how is it, you
may ask, that others, when questioned as to their
situation, have replied that they were suffering the
tortures of hell or of purgatory ?

SOUL REINCARNATION. 299

Spirits of inferior advancement, who are not yet
completely dematerialized, retain a portion of their
earthly ideas, and describe their impressions by
means of terms that are familiar to them. They are
in a state that allows of their obtaining only a very
imperfect foresight of the future; for which reason
it often happens that spirits in erraticity, or but re-
cently freed from their earthly body, speak just as
they would have done during their earthly life. Hell
may be understood as meaning a life of extremely
painful trial, with uncertainty as to the future at-
tainment of any better state ; and purgatory as a life
that is also one of trial, but with the certainty of a
happier future. Do you not say, when undergoing
any intense physical or mental distress, that you are
suffering "the tortures of the damned?" But such
an expression is only a figure of speech, and is al-
ways employed as such.

There is no such a given place as Heaven as this
term is understood by the western people, for do you
suppose it to be a place like the Elysian Fields of the
ancients, where all good spirits are crowded together
pell-mell, with no other care than that of enjoying,
throughout eternity, a passive felicity? No; it is
universal space; it is the planets, the stars, and all
the worlds of high degree, in which spirits are in the
enjo3rment of all their faculties, without having the
tribulations of material life, or the sufferings inher-

300 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

ent in the state of inferiority. Many people ask the
spirit in which Heaven it dwells because they them-
selves have the idea of several Heavens placed one
above the other like the stories of a house, and they
therefore answer you according to your question and
your own ideas, but for them the different Heavens
express different degrees and grades of purification
of the soul and consequently different degrees and
grades of happiness and purity.

It is the same when you ask a spirit whether he
is in hell ; if he is unhappy. He will say "yes," be-
cause, for him, hell is synonymous with suffering;
but he knows very well that it is not a furnace. A
Pagan would have replied that he was in Tartarus.

The same may be said in regard to other expres-
sions of a similar character, such as "the city of
flowers," "the city of the elect," the first, second,
or third "sphere," etc., which are only allegorical,
and employed by some spirits figuratively, by others
from ignorance of the reality of things, or even of
the most elementary principles of natural science.

According to the restricted idea formerly enter-
tained in regard to the localities of rewards and pun-
ishments, and to the common belief that the earth
was the center of the universe, that the sky formed
a vault overhead, and that there was a specific re- ,
gion of stars, men placed Heaven up above, and Hell
down below; hence the expressions to "ascend into

SOUL REINCABNATION. 301

heaven/' to be in "the highest heaven/* to be "cast
down into hdl/' etc. Now that astronomy having
traced up the earth's history and described its con-
stitution, has shown us that it is one of the smallest
worlds that circulate in space and devoid of any
special importance, that space is infinite, and that
there is neither "up" nor "down" in the universe,
men have been obliged to cease placing heaven above
the clouds, and hell in the "lower parts of the earth."
As for purgatory, no fixed place was ever assigned
to it.

RESERVED FOR SPIRITISM

It was reserved for spiritism to give, in regard
to all these points, an explanation which is at once,
and in the highest degree, rational, sublime, and
consoling, by showing us that we have in ourselves
our "hell" and our "heaven," and that we find our
"purgatory" in the state of incarnation, in our suc-
cessive corporeal or physical lives.

Goodness will reign upon the earth when, among
the spirits who come to dwell in it, the good shall be
more numerous than the bad; for they will then
bring in the reign of love and justice, which are the
source of good and of happiness. It is through
moral progress and practical conformity with the
laws of God, that men will attract to the earth good
spirits, who will keep bad ones away from it; but

^ I

302 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

the latter will not definitively quit the earth until
its people shall be completely purified from pride and
selfishness.

The transformation of the human race has been
predicted from the most ancient times, and you are
now approaching the period when it is destined to
take place. All those among you who are laboring
to advance the progress of mankind are helping to
hasten this transformation, which will be effected
through the incarnation, in your earth, of spirits of
higher degree, who will constitute a new population,
of greater moral advancement than the human races
they will gradually have replaced. The spirits of
the wicked people who are mowed down each day by
death, and of all who endeavor to arrest the onward
movement, will be excluded from the earth, and com-
pelled to incarnate themselves elsewhere; for they
would be out of place among those nobler races of
human beings ; whose felicity would be impaired by
their presence among them. They will be sent into
newer worlds, less advanced than the earth, and will
therein fulfill hard and laborious missions, which will
furnish them with the means of advancing, while
contributing also to the advancement of their breth-
ren of those younger worlds, less advanced than
themselves. Do you not see, in this exclusion of
backward spirits from the transformed and regen-
erated earth, the true significance of the sublime

SOUL REINCARNATION. 303

myth of the driving out of the first pair from the
garden of Eden? And do you not also see, in the
advent of the human race upon the earth, under the
conditions of such an exile, and bringing within
itself the germs of its passions and the evidences of
its primitive inferiority, the real meaning of that
other mjrth, no less sublime, of the fall of those first
parents, entailing the sinfulness of their descend-
ants? "Original Sin," considered from this point
of view, is seen to consist of the imperfection of hu-
man nature; and each of the spirits subsequently
incarnated in the human race is therefore responsi-
ble only for his own imperfection and his own
wrongdoing, and not for those of his forefathers.

Devote yourselves, then, with zeal and courage,
to the great work of regeneration, all you who are
possessed of faith and good will; you will reap a
hundred fold for all the seed you sow. 'Woe to
those who close their eyes against the light; for they
tvill have condemned themselves to long ages of
darkness and sorrow" "Woe to those who center
their enjoyment in the pleasures of the earthly life;
for they will find none to aid them in bearing the
burden of their future misery/'

CHAPTER XIX.

SUICIDE

Suicide IS caused by that peculiar mental state
which sometimes takes possession of an individual
without any assignable reason, but as a rule it is
brought about through idleness and an abnormal
desire to escape the trials of life ; but the person who
employs himself in the pursuit of some useful aim in
harmony and in keeping with his natural aptitudes
this exertion is not disagreeable and his life passes
quickly in a congenial occupation and he bears with
favor the vicissitudes of life, as he has plenty of
patience and recognition, for he looks forward to the
things in life and his future existence of spirit life.
No person has a right to take their own life, for that
right belongs to God exclusive; and he who volun-
tarily commits suicide contravenes the providential
ordering which sent him into earth life. Those who
take their own life because they are tired of living,
have made a sad mistake, for if they had employed
themselves in some kind of work their life would
never had become a burden to them. There is only
one opinion to be expressed in regard to those per-

306 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

sons who resort to suicide in order to escape from
the troubles, disappointments and responsibilities of
earth life, for they are weak ones who lack courage
to bear up under the necessary annoyances that earth
life always brings. The good spirits of the Astral
Plane ever encourage and assist those who bravely
bear their trials and sufferings, as well as disappoint-
ments, for the tribulation of life are trials and ex-
pirations; and happy will be those who bear them
without complaint, and great will be their reward.
On the contrary, miserable will be those who expect
to be fortunate from what they impiously call good
luck. Fortune and luck may favor man for a time,
but he is made to feel it afterwards all the more
bitterly. Those who have driven their unhappy fel-
low beings to suicide and have been the cause of
their committing this great deed of despair will be
held responsible for the consequence of their work
and terrible indeed will be their punishment, for they
will have to answer for their fellow creature's life
the same as for murder. Further it is not well for a
man to become disheartened in his struggle against
adversity and allow himself to die of a broken heart
or despair.

SELF-ABANDONMENT

Such self-abandonment is suicide ; but those who
had caused the crime, or might have prevented it,

SOUL REINCARNATION. 307

would be more to blame for it than the one by whom
it had been committed, and the latter would there-
fore be judged leniently. But, nevertheless, you
must not suppose that he would be entirely absolved
if he had been wanting in firmness and perseverance,
or had failed to make the best use of his intelligence
to help himself out of the difficulties. And it would
go still harder with him if he had been one of these
whose intelligence is paralyzed by pride, who would
blush to earn their living by manual labor, and would
rather die of starvation than derogate from what
they call their "social position.'' Is there not a hun-
dred fold more nobleness and true dignity in bearing
up against adversity, in braving the ill natured re-
marks of the futile and selfish, whose good will is
for those who are in want of nothing, and who turn
the cold shoulder to all who are in need of help?
To throw away one's life on account of such people
is doubly absurd, seeing that they will be perfectly
indifferent to the sacrifice.

Those who take their own life to escape the dis-
grace of having done wrong is as guilty as the one
who has been prompted by despair, for their guilt
and fault is not wiped out or overlooked by suicide,
which, on the contrary, is a second fault added to the
first one. He who has had the courage to do wrong
should have the courage to bear the consequences
of his wrongdoing. God is the sole judge, and

308 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITI8M.

sometimes diminishes the penalty of wrongdoing in
consideration of the circumstances which led to it.
Neither is suicide condoned or excused when com-
mitted in order to avoid bringing disgrace upon one's
' parent, or when the parent commits this great deed
of despair to avoid bringing disgrace on their chil-
dren or family, and he who has recourse to such an
expedient commits his sin. But as he may believe
his actions to be for the best, God takes note of his
intention, for his suicide is a self-imposed expiation ;
his fault is extenuated by his intention, but is none
the less a fault. When you have got rid of your
social prejudices and abuses, you will have no more
suicides.

The person who takes his own life in order to
escape the disgrace of a bad action, proves that he
attaches more value to the estimation of men than to
that of God, for he goes back into the spirit-world
laden with iniquities, destitute of the means of aton-
ing that for which, during his earthly life, he has
thus deprived himself. God is less inexorable than
men often are; He pardons those who sincerely re-
pent, and takes account of all our efforts to repair
what we have done amiss ; but nothing is repaired by
suicide.

He who takes his own life in the hope of arriving
the quicker at a happier state of existence, commits a
serious folly; for let a man do good, and he will

SOUL REINCAENATION. 309

be much more sure of reaching this state. His sui-
cide will delay his entrance into a better world, for
he himself will ask to be allowed to come back to

the earth, in order to complete the life that he has
cut short in pursuit of a mistaken idea. The sanc-
tuary of the good is never opened by a fault, no mat-
ter what may have been its motive. The sacrifice of
one's life is meritorious when it is made in order to
save the lives of others, or to be useful to them, and
when incurred for such an end it is sublime; but
such a voluntary sacrifice of life is not suicide. It
is the useless sacrifice that is displeasing to God, and
also that which is tarnished by pride. A sacrifice is
only meritorious when disinterested; if accom-
plished in view of a selfish end, its value is propor-
tionately lessened in the sight of God.

Every sacrifice of our own interest or enjoyment
made for the sake of others is supremely meritorious
in the sight of God, for it is the fulfilling of the law
of charity. Life, being of all earthly possessions, the
one to which men attach the greatest value, he who
renounces it for the good of his fellow creatures does
not commit a crime ; he accomplishes a sacrifice. But,
before accomplishing it, he should consider whether
his life might not be more useful than his death.

310 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

CONSEQUENCES OF SUICIDE

The consequences of suicide vary in different
cases, because the penalties it entails are always pro-
portioned to the circumstances which, in each case,
have led to its commission. The one punishment
which none can escape who have committed suicide,
is disappointment; the rest of their punishment de-
pends on circumstances. Some of those who have
killed themselves expiate their fault at once; others
do so in a new earthly life harder to bear than the
one whose course they have interruptied.

My observation has confirmed the statement that
the consequences of suicide are not the same in all
cases; but it has also shown me that some of those
consequences, resulting from the sudden interruption
of life, are the same in all cases of violent death.
Foremost among these is the greater tenacity and
consequent persistence of the link that unites the
spirit and the body, which link, in nearly all cases,
is in its full strength at the moment when it is
broken ; whereas, when death is the result of natural
causes, that link has been gradually weakened, and
is often severed before life is completely extinct.
The consequences of violent death are, first, the
prolongation of the mental confusion which usually
follows death ; next, the illusion which causes a spirit
during a longer or shorter period, to believe himself
to be still living in the earthly life.

SOUL BEINCARNATION. 311

The affinity which continues to exist between the
spirit and the body, produces, in the case of some of
those who have committed suicide, a sort of putrefi-
cation of the state of the body in the consciousness
of the spirit, who is thus compelled to perceive the
effects of its decomposition, and experiences there-
from a sensation of intense anguish and horror;
which state may continue as long as the life which
he has interrupted ought to have lasted. This state
is not a necessary result of suicide, but he who has
voluntarily shortened his life can never escape the
consequences of his want of courageous endurance;
sooner or later, and in some way or other, he is made
to expiate his fault. Thus, many spirits committed
suicide in their preceding existence, and that they
had voluntarily submitted to new trials in order to
try to bear them with more resignation. In some
cases the result of suicide is a sort of connection
with terrestrial matter, from which they vainly en-
deavor to free themselves, that they may rise to
happier worlds, access to which is denied to them.
In other cases it is regret for having done soriiething
useless, and from which they have reaped only dis-
appointment.

Religion, Morality, Eastern Occultism and all sys-
tems of Philosophy, regard suicide as being contrary
to the law of nature; all lay down as a principle
that we have no right to voluntarily shorten our life ;

312 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

but why have we not that right ? Why are we not at
liberty to put an end to our sufferings ? It was re-
served for Hindu Spiritism to show, by the example
of those who have succumbed to that temptation, that
suicide is not only a fault, as being an infraction of
a moral law (a consideration of little weight with
some persons), but is also a piece of stupidity, since
no benefit is to be gained by it, but quite the con-
trary. The teachings of Hindu Spiritism in regard
to this subject are not merely theoretic, for it places
the facts of the case before your eyes.

A person who becomes a victim to the excessive
indulgence of his passion, which he knows is a phys-
ical necessity which he is able to control, commits
moral suicide; for do you not see that such a man
or woman is trebly guilty ? For they are guilty of a
want of firmness, of a sin of bestiality and of forget-
fulness of purity of mind, and such a man is more
guilty than he who commits suicide or takes his life
outright, for he has time to reflect on the suicidal
nature of the action he is pursuing. In the case of
him wfio commits suicide on the spur of the moment,
there is sometimes a degree of bewilderment, not
uriallied to madness. The former will be punished
much more severely than the latter ; for the retribu-
tive penalties of crime are always proportioned to the
consciousness of wrongdoing that accompanied its
commission.

I^OUL BEINCAENATION. 313

Those persons who take their own life because of
the death of some loved one, in the hope of rejoin-
ing them in spirit life, commit an act that is strictly
opposite of that which is hoped for and instead of
being reunited to the object of their affection, those
who have made this sad mistake find themselves sep-
arated, and for a very long time, from the being they
hoped to rejoin; for God cannot recompense by the
granting of a favor an act which is at once a proof
of moral cowardice, and an insult offered to Himself
in distrusting His Providence. They will pay for
their folly with sorrows still greater than those they
fancied they were about to shorten, and for which
they will not be compensated by the satisfaction they
hoped to obtain.

CHAPTER XX.

EVIL PASSIONS

Every person should understand that the Passions
have their origin in man's nature, but they are not
evil of themselves ; for it is only by induling to ex-
cess that they become evil, for excess implies a per-
version of the will. But the principal of all man's
passions has been given to man for his good, and
they may spur him onto the accomplishment of great
things. It is only their abuse that does harm. No
person should give themselves up to sensuality for
the passions are like a horse that is useful when
under control, but dangerous when it obtains the
mastery. A passion becomes pernicious the moment
when you cease to govern it, and when it causes an
injury to yourselves or to others.

The passions are levers that increase man's pow-
ers tenfold, and aid him in the accomplishment of
the designs of Providence; but if, instead of ruling
them, he allows himself to be ruled by them, he falls
into every sort of excess, and the same force which,
held well in hand, would have been useful to him,
falls upon and crushes him.

316 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

All the passions have their source in a natural sen-
timent or a natural want. They are therefore not
evil in themselves, since they constitute one of the
providentially-appointed conditions of our existence.
What is usually meant by "passion" is the exagger-
ation of a need or a sentiment. But this exaggera-
tion is the excessive action of a motive-power, and
not the power itself; it is this excessive action which
becomes an evil, and leads to evil consequences of
every kind. Every passion that brings man nearer
to the nature of the animals takes him further from
the spiritual nature.

Every sentiment that raises man above the nature
of the animals is evidence of the predominance of
his spiritual nature over his animal nature and brings
him nearer to perfection. Ordinarily a slight effort
upon one's part suffices to enable him to vanquish his
evil tendencies. Indeed, very slight effort is often
all that is needed if man will only use his will power,
but it is sad to state that very few make any serious
effort whatever to vanquish his evil passion, for if he
will make but slight effort he will obtain efficacious
help for good spirits; or he can address a sincere
prayer for such help to God and to his good genius.
Good spirits will certainly come to his aid, for it is
their mission to do so. The action and force of the
passions are never so strong and violent that man
will be unable to overcome them or be powerless to

SOUL REINCARNATION. 817

withstand them. There are many who say "I will/*
but whose will is only on their lips, and who are not
sorry that what they declare themselves to be an
action of will does not take place. When a man is
unable to vanquish his passions, it is because,
through the backwardness of his spirit, he takes
pleasure in yielding to them. He who controls his
passions comprehends his spiritual nature ; he knows
that every victory over them is a triumph of his
spirit over matter.

DESTRUCTIVE CALAMITIES

The reason why God visits mankind with destruc-
tive calamities is to make human souls advance more
quickly, for have I not told you that destruction is
necessary to the moral regeneration of spirits, who
accomplish a new step of their purification in each
new existence? In order to appreciate any process
correctly, you must see its results. You judge
merely from your personal point of view, and you
therefore regard those inflictions as calamities, be-
cause of the temporary injury they cause you ; but
such upsettings are often needed in order to make
you reach more quickly a better order of things, and
to effect, in a few years, what you would otherwise
have taken centuries to accomplish.

God employs many other methods besides destruc-
tive calamities for effecting the amelioration of man-

818 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

kind. Yes ; and he employs them every day, for He
has given to each of you the means of progressing
through the knowledge of good and evil. It is be-
cause man profits so little by those other means,
that it becomes necessary to chastise his pride, and
to make him feel his weakness.

But the good man succumbs under the action of
these scourges as does the wicked ; is this just ? you
may ask.

During the earthly sojourn, man measures every-
thing by the standard of his bodily life; but, after
death, he judges differently and feels that the life
of the body, as I have often told you, is a very small
matter. A century in your world is but the length
of a flash in eternity, and therefore the sufferings of
what you call days, months, or years, are of no im-
portance; let this be a lesson for your future use.
Spirits are the real world, pre-existent to, and sur-
viving, everything else ; they are the children of God,
and the object of all His solicitude ; and bodies are
only the disguises under which they make their ap-
pearances in the corporeal world. In the great calam-
ities that decimate the human race, the sufferers are
like an army that, in the course of a campaign, sees
its clothing tattered, worn out, or lost. The general
is more anxious about his soldiers than about their
coats.

SOUL EEINCABNATION. 819

But the victims of those scourges are none the less
victims, you say. If you considered an earthly life
as it is in itself, and how small a thing it'is in com-
parison with the life of infinity, you would attach
to it much less importance. Those victims will find,
in another existence, an ample compensation for
their sufferings, if they have borne them without
murmuring.

Whether our death be the result of a public calam-
ity or of an ordinary cause, we are none the less
compelled to go when the hour of our departure has
struck; the only difference is that, in the former
case, a greater number go away at the same time. If
we could raise our thoughts sufficiently high to con-
template the human race as a whole, and to take in
the whole of its destiny at a glance, the scourges that
now seem so terrible would appear to us only as
passing storms in the destiny of the globe.

CHAPTER XXI.

SELFISHNESS

Selfishness is considered the cardinal sin among
all vices and may be regarded as the root and origin
of them; for from selfishness everything evil pro-
ceeds and if you study the sins and vices of man-
kind you will see that selfishness is at the bottom of
them all and you may combat sin and vice as you will
and you will never succeed in extirpating them un-
til, attacking the evil in its roots, you have destroyed
the selfishness which is their cause. Let all your
efforts tend to this end ; for selfishness is the verita-
ble social gangrene. Whoever would make, even in
his earthly life, some approach towards moral excel-
lence, must root out every selfish feeling from his
heart, for selfishness is incompatible with justice,
love, and charity ; it neutralizes every good quality.
In proportion as men become enlightened in regard
to spiritual things, they attach less value to ma-
terial things; and as they emancipate themselves
from the thraldom of matter, they reform the hu-
man institutions by which selfishness is fostered and

excited. Such should be the aim of education.

322 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM,

It is certain that selfishness is man's greatest evil ;
but it belongs to the inferiority of the spirits incar-
nated upon the earth, and not to the human race as
such, and consequently, those spirits, in purif3nng
themselves by successive incarnations, get rid of
their selfishness as they do of their other impurities.
Have you, upon the earth, none who have divested
themselves of selfishness, and who practice charity?
There are more of such than you think, but they are
little known, for virtue does not seek to display itself
in the glare of popularity. If there is one such
among you, why should there not be ten, why should
there not be a thousand, and so on ?

The greater the development of an evil, the more
hideous is it seen to be. It was necessary for selfish-
ness to do a vast amount of harm in order that you
might see the necessity of extirpating it. When men
shall have divested themselves of selfishness, they
will live like brothers, doing each other no harm, but
mutually aiding -each other from a sentiment of
solidarity. The strong will then be the sup^rt, and
not the oppressor, of the weak; and none will lack
the necessaries of life, because the law of justice
will be obeyed by all. It is of this reign of justice
that spirits are now charged to prepare the advent.

SOUL BEINCAENATION. 323

SPIRITISM COMBATS SELFISHNESS

Of all human imperfections, the most difficult to
root out is selfishness, because it is connected with
the influence of matter, of which man, still too near
his origin, has not yet been able to enfranchise him-
self, and which his laws, his social organization, his
education, all tend to maintain. Selfishness will be
gradually weakened as your moral life obtains pre-
dominance over your material life, through the
knowledge which spiritism gives you of the reality
of your future state, stripped of allegoric fables.
Spiritism, when it comes to be rightly understood,
and identified with the beliefs and habits of the
human race, will transform all your customs, usages,
and social relations. Selfishness is based on the im-
portance you attribute to your own personality;
spiritism, on the contrary, when rightly understood,
causes you to look at everything from a point of view
so elevated that the sentiment of personality is lost,
so to say, in the contemplation of immensity. In
destroying the sentiment of self-importance, by
showing its real nature, spiritism necessarily com-
bats selfishness.

Man is often rendered selfish by his experience of
the selfishness of others, which makes him feel the
need of defending himself against them. Seeing
that others think of themselves and not of him he

324 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

is led to think of himself rather than of others. But
let the principle of charity and fraternity become the
basis of social institution, of the legal relations be-
tween nation and nation and between man and man,
and each individual will think less of his own per-
sonal interests, because he will see that these have been
thought by others ; he will experience the moralizing
influence of examples and of contact Amidst the
present overflow of selfishness, much virtue is needed
to enable a man to sacrifice his own interests for the
sake of others, who often feel but little gratitude for
such abnegation ; but it is above all to those who pos-
sess this virtue that the Kingdom of Heaven is
opened, and the happiness of the elect assured ; while,
at the day of judgment, whoever- has thought only
of himself will be set aside, and left to suffer from
his loneliness.

Laudable efforts are made to help forward the
progress of the human race ; the generous sentiments
are encouraged, stimulated, honored, more than has
been the case at any former epoch, and yet the de-
vouring worm of selfishness is still the pest and tor-
ment of society. It is a social disease that affects
every one, and of which every one is more or less
the victim; it should therefore be combated as we
combat any other epidemic. To this end we must
proceed as does the physician, and begin by tracing
the malady to its source. We should seek out, in

SOUL EEINCARNATION. 325

every department of the social fabric, from the
relationships of the family to those of nations, from
the cottage to the palace, all the causes, all the in-
fluences, patent or secret, that maintain and develop
selfishness. The causes of the malady being discov-
ered, the remedy will spontaneously present itself,
and through the efforts of all, directed to a common
end, the virus will gradually be extirpated. The cure
may be slow, for the causes of the malady are many,
but it is not impossible. It can only be effected,
however, by going to the root of the evil, that is to
say, by generalizing education; not the education
which merely advances men in knowledge, but that
which improves them morally. Education, rightly
understood, is the key of moral progress. When the
art of training the moral nature shall be understood
as is the art of training the intellect, it will be pos-
sible to straighten a crooked nature as we straighten
a crooked sapling. But this art demands much tact,
much experience, and profound observation ; it is a
great mistake to suppose that the possession of scien-
tific knowledge suffices to enable the teacher to cxer-.
cise it with success. Whoever observes the life of
a child, whether rich or poor, and notes all the per-
nicious influences that act upon its weakness from
the moment of its birth, the ignorance and negli-
gence of those who have charge of it, and the mis-
chievous tendency of many of the means employed

326 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

with a view to moralize it, you will not wonder that
the world should be so full of crooked sticks. But
let the same skill and care be given to the training of
the moral nature as to that of the intellect, and it
will be seen that, even should some natures prove
refractory, the greater number only need to be suit-
ably cultivated in order to yield good fruit.

Man desires to be happy, and this desire, im-
planted in him by nature, prompts him to labor un-
ceasingly to improve his condition upon the earth,
and to seek the cause of the evils that afflict him, in
order to remove them. When he thoroughly com-
prehends that selfishness is one of those causes, that
it engenders the pride, ambition, cupidity, envy,
hatred, jealousy, by which he is continually annoyed;
that it brings trouble into all the social relations,
provokes dissensions, destroys confidence, converts
friends into foes, and obliges each individual to re-
main constantly on the defensive against his neigh-
bor, he will see that this vice is incompatible, not
only with his own felicity, but even with his own
security; and the more he has suffered from it, the
more keenly will he feel the necessity of fighting
against it, as he fights against pestilence, dangerous
animals, and every other source of disaster, for he
will be compelled to do so in view of his own
interest.

Selfishness is the source of all the vices, as charity

SOUL BEINCARNATION. 327

is the source of all the virtues. To destroy the one,
to develop the other, should be the aim. of all who
desire to insure their own happiness, in the present
life, as in the future.

KNOW THYSELF

The surest and most efficacious method of insur-
ing the moral improvement of the soul's present ex-
istence, thereby resisting the influence and attraction
of evil spirits, is to "Know Thyself," and this can
only be accomplished by doing as every great Adept
has done, for self-knowledge and the teachings of
Eastern Occultism are only to be obtained by great
study and meditation and any person who is in the
least spiritually inclined will admit this truth.
Knowledge of thyself and the development of Occult
Powers are not difficult to acquire ; man has only to
examine his soul at the close of each day and review
all that he has done and accomplished, and see
whether he has failed in, or slighted any of his stud-
ies. It was in this way that every Adept
has succeeSed in obtaining a knowledge of him-
self, and in ascertaining what there was in
him that needed reforming. He who, every
evening, should thus recall all the actions of
the day, asking himself whether he has done ill or
well, and praying God and his guardian angel to
enlighten him, would acquire great strength for self-

328 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

improvement, for, believe me, God would assist him.
Ask yourself these questions; inquire of yourself
what you have done, and what was your aim in act-
ing in such a manner ; whether you have done any-
thing that you would be ashamed to avow. Ask
yourself also this question : "If it pleased God to
call me back, at this moment, into the other life,
should I, on returning into the world of spirits, in
which nothing is hidden, have to dread sight of any
one?" Examine what you have done, first, against
God ; next against your neighbor ; and lastly, against
yourself. The answers to these questions will either
give repose to your conscience, or show you some
moral malady of which you will have to cure your-
self.

Self-knowledge is, therefore, the key to individual
improvement; but, you will ask, "How is one to
judge one's self? Is not each man subject to the
illusions of self-love, which diminish his faults in
his own eyes and find excuses for them ? The miser
thinks himself to be merely practicing economy and
foresight ; the proud man thinks his pride to be only
dignity." This is true, but you have a means of as-
certainment that cannot deceive you. When you are
in doubt as to the quality of any one of your actions,
ask yourself what would be your judgment in regard
to it if it were done by another? If you would blame
it in another, it cannot be less blamable when done

SOUL REINCABNATION. 829

by you, for God's justice. has neither two weights
nor two measures. Endeavor also to learn what is
thought of it by others; and do not overlook the
opinion of your enemies, for they have no interest in
disguising the truth, and God often places them be-
side you as a mirror, to warn you more frankly than
would be done by a friend. Let him, then, who is
firmly resolved on self -improvement, examine his
conscience in order to root out his evil tendencies, as
he roots out the weeds from his garden; let him,
every night, cast up his moral accounts for the day,
as the tradesman counts up his profits and loss; he
may be sure that the former will be a more profitable
operation thafl the latter. He who, after this foot-
ing up of his day's doings, can say that the balance
of the account is in his favor, may sleep in peace,
and fearlessly await the moment of his awaking
in the other life. Let the questions you address be
clear and precise, and do not hesitate to multiply
them; you may well devote a few minutes to the
securing of a happiness that will last forever. Do
you not labor every day with a view to insuring re-
pose for your old age? Is not this repose the object
of your desires, the aim that prompts your endurance
of the fatigues and privations of the moment ? ' But
what comparison is there between a few days of rest,
impaired by the infirmities of the body, and the end-
less rest that awaits the virtuous? And is not this

830 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

latter worth the making of a few efforts ? I know
that many will say, 'The present is certain, and the
future uncertain ;" but this is precisely the error I am
charged to remove from your minds, by showing
you your future in such a way as to leave no doubt
in your minds concerning it. This is why, having
hegvoi by producing phenomena calculated to arrest
your attention through their appeal to your senses,
I now give you the moral teachings that each of you
is charged to spread abroad in his turn. It is to this
end that I have written "THE BOOK OF
DEATH/'

Many of the faults you commit are passed over by
you unperceived. If, following the advice I give
you, you interrogated your conscience more fre-
quently, you would see how often you have done
wrong without being aware of it, because you have
failed to scrutinize the nature and motive of your
acts. The interrogative mode of self-examination
is more precise than the mere vag^e admission of a
standard of rectitude which you too often fail to
apply in detail to your own actions. It compels you
to give yourselves, in regard to the quality of those
actions, categoric answers, by, "Yes and No" that
leave you no room for equivocation, and that con-
stitute so many personal arguments addressed to
your innermost selves, so many returns which aid

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 381

you to compute the sum of the good and evil is in
you.

ETERNAL SUFFERING

Spirits will suffer eternally if they remain eter-
nally wicked ; that is to say, if he were never to re-
pent nor to amend, he would suffer eternally. But
God has not created beings to let them remain for-
ever a prey to evil ; He created them only in a state
of simplicity and ignorance, and all of them must
progress, in a longer or shorter time, according to
the action of their will. The determination to ad-
vance may be awakened more or less tardily, as the
development of children is more or less precocious ;
but it will be stimulated, sooner or later, by the ir-
resistible desire of the spirit himself to escape from
his state of inferiority, and to be happy. The law
which regulates the duration of a spirit's sufferings
is, therefore, eminently wise and beneficient, since it
makes that duration to depend on his own efforts ; he
is never deprived of his free will, but, if he makes a
bad use of it, he will have to bear the consequences
of his errors. The duration of the punishment of the
human soul depends upon its own free will, although
said punishment may be imposed upon it for a fixed
time, but the Great Creator wills only the good of
man's soul, and always welcomes his repentance and

332 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

the desire to amend his ways, and the inflictions and
penalties imposed upon the soul in spirit life are
never eternal as many suppose. Those who believe
this to be a fact, should interrogate their common
sense and reason, and ask themselves whether an
eternal condemnation for a few moments of error
would not be the negation of the goodness of God ?
What, in fact, is the duration of a human life, even
though prolonged to a hundred years, in comparison
with eternity ? "Eternity ;'' do you rightly compre-
hend the word? Sufferings, tortures without end,
without hope, for a few faults. Does not your judg-
ment reject such an idea? That the ancients should
have seen, in the Master of the Universe, a terrible,
jealous, vindicitive God of the Christians, who places
love, charity, pity, the forgetfulness of offenses, in
the foremost rank of virtues, and who could not lack
the qualities which He has made it the duty of His
creatures to possess. Is it not a contradiction to
attribute to Him infinite love and infinite vengeance ?
You say that God's justice is infinite, transcending
the limited understanding of mankind; but justice
does not exclude kindness, and God would not be
kind if He condemned the greater number of His
creatures to horrible and unendin^^ punishment.
Could He make it obligatory on His children to be
just, if His own action towards them did not give
them the most perfect standard of justice? And is it

SOUL EEINCARNATION. 333

not the very sublimity of justice and of kindness to
make the duration of punishment to depend on the
efforts of the guilty one to amend, and to mete out
the appropriate recompense, both for good and for
evil, to each, according to his works?

Set yourselves, by every means in your power, to
combat and to annihilate the idea of eternal ptmish-
ment, which is a blasphemy against the justice and
goodness of God, and the principal source of the
skepticism, materialism, and indifferentism that
have invaded the masses since their intelligence has
begun to be developed. When once a mind has re-
ceived enlightenment, in however slight a degree,
the monstrous injustice of such an idea is imme-
diately perceived; reason rejects if, and rarely fails
to confound, in the same ostracism, the penalty
against which it revolts and the God to whom that
penalty is attributed. Hence the numberless ills
which have burst upon you, and for which we come
to bring you a remedy. This task we point out to
you will be all the easier because the defenders of
this belief have avoided giving a positive opinion in
regard to it ; neither the Councils nor the Fathers of
the Church have definitely settled this weighty ques-
tion. If Christ, according to the Evangelists and the
literal interpretation of His allegorical utterances,
threatens the guilty with a fire that is unquenchable,
there is absolutely nothing in those utterances to

334 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

prove that they are condemned to remain in that fire
eternally.

Hapless sheep that have gone astray, behold, ad-
vancing towards you, the Good Shepherd, who, so f ar
from intending to drive you forever from His pres-
ence, comes Himself to seek you, that He may lead
you back to the fold. Prodigal children, renounce
your voluntary exile, and turn your steps towards
the parental dwelling. Your Father, with arms
ready open to receive you, is waiting to welcome you
back to your home.

"ETERNAL PUNISHMENTS"

"Wars of words, wars of words," has not enough
blood been already shed for words, and must the
fires of the stake be rekindled for them? Men dis-
pute about the words "eternal punishments," "ever-
lasting burnings ;" but do you know that what you
now understand by eternity was not understood in
the same way by the ancients? Let the theologian
consult the sources of his faith, and he, like the rest
of you, will see that in the Hebrew text, the words
which the Greeks, the Latins, and the modems, have
translated as endless and irremissible punishment,
has not the same meaning. Eternity of punishment
corresponds to eternity of evil. Yes, so long as evil
continues to exist among you, so long will punish-
ment continue to exist; it is in this relative sense

SOUL BEINCAENATION. 335

that the sacred texts should be interpreted. The
eternity of punishments, therefore, is not absolute,
but relative. Let a day come when all men shall
have donned, through repentance, the robe of inno-
cence, and, on that day there will be no more weep-
ing, wailing, or gnashing of teeth. Your human
reason is, in truth, of narrow scope; but, such as it
is, it is a gift of God, and there is no man of right
feeling who, with the aid of that reason, can under-
stand the eternity of punishment in any other sense.
If we admit the eternity of punishment, we must also
admit that evil will be eternal ; but God alone is eter*
*;al, and He could not have created an eternal evil,
without plucking from his attributes the most mag-
nificent of them all, viz. : His sovereign powers ; for
he who creates an element destructive of his works
is not sovereignly powerful. Plunge no more thy
>ioumfuI glance, O human race, into the entrails of,
the earth, in search of chastisements. Weep, but
hope; expiate, but take comfort in the thought of
God who is entirely loving, absolutely powerful, es-
sentially just.

Union with the Divine Being is the aim of human
existence. To the attainment of this aim three
things are necessary — ^knowledge, love, justice;
three things are contrary to this aim — ^ignorance,
hatred, injustice. You are false to these funda-
mental principles when you falsify the idea of God

386 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

by exaggerating His severity, thus suggesting to the
mind of the creature that there is in it more clem-
ency, long-sufFering, love, and true justice, than you
attribute to the Creator. You destroy the very idea
of retribution by rendering it as inadmissible, by
your minds, as is, by your hearts, the policy of the
Middle Ages, with its hideous array of tortures, ex-
ecutioneers, and the stake.

BOILING CALDRONS

When the principle of indiscriminate retaliation
has been banished forever from human legislation,
can you hope to make men believe that principle to
be the rule of the Divine Government ? Believe me,
brothers in God and Jesus Christ, you must either
resign yourselves to let all your dogmas perish in
your hands rather than modify them. The idea of a
hell full of glowing furnaces and boiling caldrons
might be credible to an age of iron ; in the twentieth
century it can be nothing more _than an empty phan-
tom, capable, at the utmost, of frightening little chil-
dren, and by which the children themselves will no
longer be frightened when they are a little bigger.
By your persistence in upholding mythic terrors, you
engender incredulity, source of every sort of social
disorganization ; and I tremble at beholding the very
foundations of social order shaken and crumbling
into dust for want of an authoritative code of pen?»^ -

SOUL BEINCARNATION. 337

ity. Let all those who are animated by a living and
ardent faith, heralds of the coming day, unite their
efforts, not to keep up antiquated fables now fallen
into disrepute, but to resuscitate and revivify the
true idea of penality, under forms in harmony with
the usages, sentiments, and enlightenment of your
epoch.

What, in fact, is a sinner? One who, by the
deviation from the right road, by a false movement
of the soul, has swerved from the true aim of his
creation, which consists in the harmonious worship
of the Beautiful, the Good, as embodied in the arche-
type of humanity, the Divine Exemplar, Jesus
Christ.

What is chastisement? The natural, derivative
consequence of that false movement ; the amount of
pain necessary to disgust the sinner with his de-
parture from rectitude, by his experience of the suf-
fering caused by that departure. Chastisement is the
goad which, by the smarting it occasions, decides the
soul to cut short its wanderings, and to return into
the right road. The sole aim of chastisement is
rehabilitation and, therefore, to assume the eternity
of chastisement is to deprive it of all reason for
existing.

Cease, I beseech you, the attempt to establish a
parallelism of duration between good, essences of the
Creator, and evil, essence of the creature ; for, in so

888 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

doing, you establish a standard of penality that is
utterly without justification. Affirm, on the con-
trary, the gradual diminution of imperfections and
of chastisements through successsive existences, and
you consecrate the doctrine of the union of the crea-
ture with the Creator by the reconciliation of justice
with mercy.

It is desired to stimulate men to the acquisition of
virtue, and to turn them from vice, by the hope of
reward and the fear of punishment; but, if the
threatened punishment is represented under condi-
tions repugnant to reason, not only will it fail of its
aim, but it will lead men, in rejecting those condi-
tions, to reject the very idea of punishment itself.
But let the idea of future rewards and punishments
be presented to their mind under a reasonable f orm«
and they will not reject it. This reasonable explana-
tion of the subject is given by the teachings of Hin-
du Spiritism.

TERRIFIC TORTURES

The doctrine of eternal punishment makes an im-
placable God of the Supreme Being. Would it be
reasonable to say of a sovereign that he is very
kind, very benevolent, very indulgent, that he only
desires the happiness of all around him, but that he
is, at the same time, jealous, vindictive, inflexibly
severe, and that he punishes three-quarters of his

SOUL EBINCABNATION. 839

subjects with the most terrific tortures, for any of-
fense, or any infraction of his laws, even when their
imputed fault has resulted simply from their igno-
rance of the laws they have transgressed? Would
there not be an evident contradiction in such a state-
ment of the sovereign's character ? And can God's
action be less consistent than that of a man?

The doctrine in question presents another contra-
diction. Since God foreknows all things, He must
have known, in creating a soul, that it would trans-
gress His laws, and it. must therefore have been,
from its very formation, predestined by Him to eter-
nal misery ; but is such an assumption reasonable or
admissible? The doctrine of punishment propor-
tioned to wrongdoing is, on the contrary, entirely
consonant with reason and justice. God undoubt-
edly foresaw, in creating a given soul, that, in its
ignorance, it would do wrong; but He has ordained
that its very faults themselves shall furnish it with
the means of becoming enlightened, through its ex-
perience of the painful effects of its wrong-doing;
He will compel it to expiate that wrongdoing, but
only in order that it may thereby be more firmly
fixed in goodness; thus the door of hope is never
closed against it, and the moment of its deliverance
from suffering is made to depend on the amount of
effort it puts forth to achieve its purification. If
the doctrine of future punishment had always been

840 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

presented under this aspect, very few would ever
have doubted its truth.

The word eternal is often figuratively employed,
in common parlance, to designate any long period of
. duration of which the end is not foreseen, although
it is known that it will come in course of time. We
speak, for instance, of "the Eternal Snows" of
mountain-peaks and polar regions, although we
know, on the one hand, that our globe will come to
an end, and, on the other hand, that the state of
those regions may be changed by the normal dis-
placement of the earth's axis, or by some cataclysm.
The word eternal, therefore, in this case, does not
mean infinitely perpetual. We say, in the suffering
of some long illness, that our days present the same
"eternal round" of weariness. Is it strange, then,
that spirits who have suffered for years, centuries,
thousands of ages even, should express themselves in
the same way ? Moreover, we must not forget that
their state of backwardness prevents them f rc»n see-
ing the other end of the road, and that they there-
fore believe themselves to be destined to suffer for-
ever; a belief which is itself a part of their punish-
ment.

The doctrine of Material Fire, of furnaces, and
tortures, borrowed from the pagan Tartarus, is com-
pletely given up by many of the most eminent theo-
logians of the present day, who admit that the word

SOUL EEINCABNATION. 341

"fire" IS employed figuratively in the Bible, and is
to be understood as meaning moral fire. Those who,
like ourselves, have observed the incidents of the life
beyond the grave, as presented to our view by the
communications of spirits, have had ample proof
that its sufferings are none the less excruciating for
not being of material nature. And even as regards
the duration of those sufferings, many theologians
are beginning t^ admit the restriction indicated
above, and to consider that the word eternal may be
considered as referring to the principle of penality
in itself, as the consequence of an immutable law,
and not to its application to each individual. When
religious teaching shall only admit this interpreta-
tion, it will bring back to* a belief in God and in a
future life many who are now losing themselves in
the mazes of materialism.

CHAPTER XXII.

REINCARNATION

The writer does not wish to be understood as
meaning that Reincarnation or Eastern Spiritism
doctrine is of modern invention ; on the contrary, as
the intercommunication of spirits with men occurs in
virtue of natural law, it has existed from the begin-
ning of time, and the Hindus can prove that traces of
this inter-commimication are to be found in the
earliest annals of antiquity. P}rthagoras, as is
well known, was not the author of the sys-
tem of metempsychosis; he borrowed it from
the Hindu Adepts of Hindoostan and of
Egypt, by whom it has been held from time im-
memorial. The idea of the transmigration of souls
was, therefore, in the earliest ages of the world, a
general belief, equally admitted by the common peo-
ple and by the most eminent thinkers of the period.
By what road did this idea come to them? Did it
reach them through revelation or through intuition ?
In regard to this point you know nothing; but it
may be safely assumed that no idea could thus have
traversed the successive ages of the world, and have

344 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

commanded the assent "of the highest intellects of
the human race, if it had not been based on some
solid ground of truth and reason. The antiquity of
this doctrine should therefore be considered as an
argument in its favor, rather than as an objection.
But, at the same time, it must not be forgotten that
there is, between the antique doctrine of metempsy-
chosis and the modern doctrine of reincarnation, this
capital difference, viz. : that the spirits who inculcate
the latter reject absolutely the idea that the human
soul can pass into an animal, and vice versa.

The spirits therefore who now proclaim the
truth of the plurality of our corporeal existence
reassert a doctrine which has its birth in the earliest
ages of the world, and which has maintained its
footing to the present day in the convictions of many
minds; but at present this truth is under an aspect
which is more rational, more conformable with the
natural laws of progress, and more in harmony with
the wisdom of the Creator, throughout the strip-
ping away of accessories added to it by superstition.

It may here be asked, why is it that the statements
of all spirits are not in unison in regard to this sub-
ject? To this question I shall recur elsewhere.

Let us, for the present, examine the matter from
another point of view, entirely irrespective of any
assumed declarations of spirits in regard to it. Let
us put the latter entirely aside for the moment; let

SOUL EEINCARNATION. 945

US suppose them to have made no statement what-
ever in regard to it; let us even suppose the very
existence of spirits not to have been surmised. Plac-
ing ourselves for a moment on neutral ground, and
admitting as equally possible, the hypothesis of the
plurality and of the unity of corporeal existences, let
us see which of these hypotheses is most in harmony
with the dictates of reason and with the requirements
of our own interest.

There are persons who reject the idea of reincar-
nation simply because they do not like it, declaring
that their present existence has been quite enough
for them, and that they have no wish to recommence
a similar one. Of such persons I would merely in-
quire whether they suppose that Gk)d has consulted
their wishes and opinions in regulating the uni-
verse ? Either the law of reincarnation exists, or it
does not exist. If it exists, no matter how displeas-
ing it may be to them, they will be compelled to sub-
mit in it; for God will not ask their permission to
enforce it. It is as though a sick man should say,
"I have suffered enough today; I do not choose to
suffer tomorrow." No matter what may be his un-
willingness to suffer, he will nevertheless be obliged
to go on suffering, not only on the morrow, but day
after day, until he is cured. In like manner, if it be
their destiny to live again corporeally, they will thus
live again, they will be reincarnated. In vain will

846 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

they rebel against necessity like a child refusing to
go to school, or a condemned criminal refusing to
go to prison. They will be compelled to submit to
their fate, no matter how unwilling they may be
to do so. Such objections are too puerile to deserve
a more serious examination. Let us say, however,
for the consolation of those who urge them, that the
Hindu doctrine of reincarnation is by no means so
terrible as they imagine it to be ; that the conditions
of their next existence depends on themselves, and
will be happy or unhappy according to the deeds
done by them in this present life ; and that they may
even by their action in this life, raise themselves
above the danger of falling again into the mire of
expiation.

FUTURE AFTER DEATH

I take it for granted that those whom I am ad-
dressing believe in some sort of future after death
and that they do not look forward either
to annihilation or to a drowning of their soul
in a universal whole, without individuality like so
many drops of rain in the ocean; which
comes to much the same thing. But, if you
believe in a future state of existence, you
probably do not suppose that it will be the same for
all; for in that case, where would be the utility of
doing right? Why should men place any restraint
upon themselves? Why should they not satisfy all

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 847

their passions, all their desires, even at the expense
of the rest of the world, if the result is to be the same
in all cases ? On the contrary, you no doubt believe
that your future will be more or less happy accord-
ing to what you have done in your present life ; and
you have doubtless the desire to be as happy as pos-
sible in the future to which you look forward since
it will be for all eternity. Do you, perchance, con-
sider yourself to be one of the most excellent of those
who have ever existed upon the earth, and therefore
entitled to supreme felicity? No. You admit, then,
that there are some who are better than you, and
who have consequently a right to a higher place, al-
though you do not deserve to be classed among the
reprobate. Place yourself, then, in thought, for a
moment, in the medium condition which, according
to your own admission, will properly be yours, and
suppose that some one comes to you and says, "you
suffer; you are not so happy as you might be; and
meanwhile you see others in the enjoyment of un-
mixed happiness. Would you like to exchange your
position for theirs ?" "Undoubtedl3c, I should," you
reply; "what must I do to bring about such a re-
sult?'* "Something very simple; you have only to
begin again what you have done badly and try to
do it better." Would you hesitate to accept the
offer, even at the cost of several existences of trial ?
Let us take another illustration, still more prosaic.

848 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITI8M.

Suppose that some one comes to a man who, though
not in a state of absolute destitution, has to endure
many privations through the smallness of his means,
and say to him, "here is an immense fortune of
which you may have the enjoyment, on condition
that you work hard during one minute." The laz-
iest of men, in response to such an offer, would say,
without hesitation, "I am ready to work for one min-
ute, for two minutes, for an hour, for a whole day
if necessary. What is a day's labor in comparison
with the certainty of ease and plenty for all the rest
of my life?"

But what is the duration of a corporeal life in
comparison with eternity? Less than a minute, less
than a moment.

We sometimes hear people bring forward the fol-
lowing argument : "God, who is sovereignly good,
cannot impose upon man the hard necessity of re-
commencing a series of sorrows and tribulations."
But would there be more kindness in condemning a
man to perpetual suffering for a few moments of er-
ror than in giving him the means of repairing his
faults?

HINDU PHILOSOPHER

Two manufacturers had each a workman who
might hope to become some day the partner of his
employer. But it happened that both these workmen

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 349

made so very bad a use of their time that they mer-
ited dismissal. One of the manufacturers drove
away his unfaithful workman, despite his supplica-
tions ; and this workman, being unable to obtain any
other employment, died of want. The other said to
his workman — ^*'You have wasted a day; you owe
me compensation for the loss you have thus caused
me. You have done your work badly ; you owe me
reparation for it. I give you leave to begin it over
again. Try to do well, and I will keep you in my
employ, and you may still aspire to the superior
position which I had promised you."

Need we ask which of the manufacturers has
shown himself to be the most humane ? And would
God, who is clemency itself, be more inexorable
than a just and compassionate man? The idea that
our fate is decided forever by a few years of trial,
and notwithstanding the fact that is was not in our
power to attain to perfection while we remained upon
the earth, fills the mind with anguish ; while the con-
trary idea is eminently consoling, for it leaves us
hope. Thus, without pronouncing for or against the
plurality of existence, without admitting either
hypothesis in preference to the other, I assert that,
if the matter were left to your choice, there is no one
who would prefer incurring a sentence against which
there should be no appeal. A Hindu philosopher has
said that "If God did not exist, it would be necessary

850 DEATH AND HINDU 8PIBITISM.

to invent Him for the happiness of the human race ;*'
the same might be said in regard to the plurality of
existence. But, as I h^ve already remarked, God
does not ask your permission in the establishment of
providential ordering; He does not consult your
preference in the matter. Either the law of reincar-
nation exists, or it does not exist ; let us see on which
side is the balance of probabilities, considering the
matter from another point of view, but still leaving
out of sight all idea of any statements that have been
made by the spirits in regard to it, and examining the
question merely as a matter of philosophic inquiry.
If the law of reincarnation does not exist, we can
have but one corporeal existence; and if our present
corporeal life be our only one, the soul of each in-
dividual must have been created at the same time as
his body; unless, indeed, we assume interiority of
the soul, in wHich case we should have to inquire
what was the state of the soul before its union with
the body, and whether this state did not constitute an
existence of some kind or other. There is no middle
ground. Either the soul existed before its union
with the body, or it did not. If it existed, what was
its condition? Was it possessed of self-conscious-
ness? If not, its state must have been nearly equiv-
alent to non-existence. If possessed of individuality,
it must have been either progressive or stationary ; in
either case, what was its degree of advancement on

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 351

uniting itself to the body? If, on the contrary, it
be assumed, according to the general belief, that the
soul is born into existence at the same time as the
body— or that, previous to the birth of the body, it
possesses only negative faculties — ^we have to pro-
pose the following questions :

1. Why do the souls manifest so great a diver-
sity of aptitudes independently of the ideas acquired
by education ?

2. Whence comes the extra-normal aptitude for
certain arts and sciences displayed by many children
while still very young, although others remain in a
state of inferiority, or of mediocrity, all their life?

3. Whence do some individuals derive the innate
or intuitive ideas that are lacking in others ?

4. Whence do some children derive the preco-
cious instincts of vice or virtue, the innate sen-
timents of dignity or of baseness, which often con-
trast so strikingly with the situation into which they
are born ?

5. Why is it that some men, independently of
education, are more advanced than others ?

6. Why is it that among the races which people
the globe some are savage and others civilized ? If
you took a Hottentot baby from its mother's breast,
and brought it up in our most renowned schools,
could you succeed in making of it a Moses or a
Shakespeare ?

352 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

What is the philosophy or the theosophy that can
solve these problems? Either the souls of men are
equal at their birth, or they are unequal. If they are
equal, why these inequalities of aptitude. Will it be
said that these inequalities depend on the corporeal
organization of each child? But such a doctrine
would be the most monstrous and the most immoral
of hypothesis; for, in that case, man would be a
mere machine, the sport of matter; he would not be
responsible for his actions, but would have the right
to throw all the blame of his wrong-doing on the im-
perfections of his physical frame. If, on the other
hand, souls are created unequal, God must have
created them so ; but, in that case, why is this innate
superiority accorded to some and denied to others?
And would such partiality be consistent with the
justice of God, and the equal love He bears to all His
children ?

Admit, on the contrary, a succession of existences,
and everything is explained. Men bring with them,
at their birth in flesh, the amount of intuition they
have previously acquired. They are more or less ad-
vanced, according to the number of existences they
have previously accomplished, according as they are
nearer to or farther from the common starting-point ;
exactly as, in a company made up of individuals of
different ages, each will possess a degree of develop-
ment proportionate to the number of years he has *

SOUL BEINCAENATION. 858

already lived ; the succession of years being to the life
of the body what the succession of existences is to
the life of the soul. Bring together in the same
place, at the same time a thousand individuals of all
ages, from the new-bom babe to the patriarch of
eighty. Suppose that a veil is thrown over their
past, and that you, in your ignorance of that past,
imagine them all to have been born on the same day.
You would naturally wonder how it is that some are
big and others little; that some are wrinkled and
others fresh; that some are learned and others
ignorant ; but if the cloud which hid their past were
dispersed, and you discovered that some had lived
longer than others, all these differences would be ex-
plained. God, in His justice, could not create soulr
more or less perfect. But granting the plurality of
our corporeal existences, there is nothing in the dif-
ferences of quality that we see around us in any way
inconsistent with the most rigorous equity ; for what
we see around us is then perceived to have its roots,
not in the present, but in the past.

Is this argument based on any pre-conceived sys-
tem or gratuitous supposition ? No. I start from a
fact that is patent and incontestable — ^viz, the in-
equality of natural aptitudes and of intellectual and
moral development ; and I find this a fact to be inex-
plicable by any of the theories in vogue, while the ex-
planation of this fact afforded by the Hindu doctrine

854 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

of Reincarnation is at once simple, natural, and ra-
tional. Is it reasonable to prefer a theory which
does not explain this fact to one which does ?

In regard to the sixth question, it will doubtless be
replied that the Hottentot is of an inferior race; in
which case I beg to inquire whether a Hottentot is
or is not a man ? If he is not a man, why try to make
him a Christian ? If he be a man, why has God re-
fused to him and to his race the privileges accorded
to the Caucasian race? Hindu philosophy is too
broad to admit the existence of different species of
men ; it recognizes only men whose spiritual part is
more or less backward, but who are all capable of the
same progress. Is not this view of the human race
more conformably with the justice of God ?

We have been considering the soul in regard to its
past and its present ; if we consider it in regard to the
future, we are met by difficulties which the theories
in vogue are equally unable to explain.

If our future destiny is to be decided solely by our
present existence, what will be in the future the re-
spective positions of the savage and of the civilized
man? Will they be on the same level, or will there
be a difference in the sum of their eternal felicity?

Will the man who has labored diligently all his
life to advance his moral and itellectual improve-
ment be placed in the same rank with the man who,
not through his own fault, but because he has neither

SOUL REINCAENATION. 355

the time nor the opportunity for advancing, has re-
mained at a lower point of moral and intellectual im-
provement ?

Can the man who has done wrong because the
means of enlightenment have been denied him be
justly punished for wrong-doing which has not been
the result of his own choice ?

ADEPT AND CHRISTIAN

The true Adept and Christian endeavors to en-
lighten, moralize, and civilize mankind ; but for one
whom he is able to enlighten, there are millions who
die every year without the light having reached
them. What is to be the fate of these milions ? Are
they to be treated as reprobates ? and, if they are not
to be so treated, how have they deserved to be placed
in the category with those who have become en-
lightened and moralized ?

What is to be the fate of children who die before
they have been able to do good or evil ? If they are
to be received among the supremely happy, why
should this favor be granted to them without their
having done anything to deserve it ? And in virtue
of what privilege are they exempted from undegoing
the tribulations of the earthly life?

Which of the doctrines hitherto propounded can
solve these problems ? But, if we admit the fact of
our consecutive existences, all these problems are

856 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM,

solved in conformity with the divine justice. What
we are not able to do in this existence we do in an-
other. None are exempted from the action of the
law of progress ; everyone is rewarded progressively,
according to his deserts, but no one is excluded from
the eventual attainment of the highest felicity, no
matter what may be the obstacles he has to encounter
on the road.

The questions growing out of the subject we are
considering might be multiplied indefinitely, for the
psychological and moral problems which can only
find their solution in the plurality of existence are
innumerable. In the present considerations I have
restricted my inquiry to those which are most general
in their nature. But it may still be urged by some
objectors, "whatever may be the arguments in its
favor, the doctrine of reincarnaticxi is not admitted
by the church; its acceptance would therefore be
the overthrow of religion."

It is not my intention to treat the question, in this
place, under the special aspect suggested by the fore-
going objection; it is sufficient for the present pur-
pose to have shown the eminently moral and rational
character of the doctrine we are considering. But it
may be confidently assertai, that ft doctrine which is
both moral and rational cannot be antagonistic to a
religion which proclaims the Divine Being to be the
most perfect goodness and the highest reason. What^

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 857

may we ask in our turn, would have become of the
church, if, in opposition to the convictions of man-
kind and the testifnony of science, it had persisted in
rejecting overwhehmng evidence, and had cast out
from its bosom all who did not believe in the move-
ment of the Sun or in the six days of creation?
What would be the credit or authority possessed
among enlightened nations by a religious system
that should inculcate manifest errors as articles of
belief ? Whenever any matter of evidence has been
established, the Church has wisely sided with the
evidence. If it be proved that the facts of human
life are irreconcilable, on any other supposition, with
a belief in the justice of God — ^if various points of
the Christian dogma can only be explained with the
aid of this doctrine, the Church will be compelled to
admit its truth, and to acknowledge that apparent
antagonism between them is only apparent. Re-
ligion has no more to fear from the acceptance of this
doctrine than from the discovery of the motion of
the earth and of the periods of geological formation,
which, at first sight, appears to contradict the state-
ment of the Bible. Moreover, the principle of rein-
carnation is implied in many passages of Holy Writ,
and is explicitly formulated in the Gospel.

When they came down from the mountain (after
the transfiguration), Jesus gave this commandment,
and said to them — ''Speak to no one of what you

358 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

hat^e just seen, until the Son of Man shall have been
resuscitated from among the dead/'

His disciples thereupon began to question Him,
and inquired, "Why, then, do the Scribes say that
Elias must first come?" But Jesus replied to thpm,
"It is true that Elias must come, and that he will re-
establish all things. But I declare to you that Elias
has already come, and they did not know him, but
have made him suffer as they listed. It is thus that
they will put to death the Son of Man." Then His
disciples understood that He spoke to them of John
the Baptist. (St. Matthew, chap. XVII.)

Since John the Baptist is declared by Christ to
have been Elias, it follows that the spirit or soul of
Elias must have been reincarnated in the body of
John the Baptist.

But whatever may be your opinion in regard to re-
incarnation, whether you accept it or whether you
reject it, it is certain that you shall have to undergo
it, if it really exists, notwithstanding any belief of
yours to the contrary. The point which I here desire
to establish is this, viz, that the teaching of the spirits
who proclaim it is eminently Christian, that it is
founded on the doctrines of the immortality of the
soul, of future rewards and punishments, of the
justice of God, of human free-will, and the moral
code of Christ ; and that, therefore, it cannot be anti-
religious.

SOUL REINCARNATION. 359

I have wiritten this knowledge, as I remarked
above, without reference to statements made by spir-
its ; such statements being, for many minds, without
authority. If I, and so many others, have adopted
the hypothesis of the plurality of existence, I have
done so not merely because it has been proclaimed by
spirits, but because it has been revealed to me to be
eminently true, and because it solves problems
that are insoluble by the opposite hypothesis. Had
it been suggested to me by a mere mortal, I should,
therefore, have adopted it with equal confidence, re-
nouncing, with equal promptitude, my preconceived
opinions on the subject; for when an opinion has
been shown to the erroneous, even self-love has more
to lose than gain by persisting in holding it. In like
manner, I should have rejected the doctrine of re-
incarnation, even though proclaimed by spirits, if it
had appeared to me to be contrary to reason, as, in-
deed, I have rejected many other ideas which spirits
have sought to inculcate, for I know, by experience,
that I can no more give a blind acceptance to ideas
put forth by spirits than I can to those put forth by
men.

The principal merit of the doctrine of reincarna-
tion is, then, to our minds, that it is supremely ra-
tional. But it has also in its favor the confirmation
of facts — facts positive and, so to say, material,
which is apparent to all who study the question with

aeO DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

patience and perseverance, and in presence of which
all doubt as to the reality of the law in question is
impossible. When the appreciation of these facts
shall have become popularized, like those which have
revealed to us the formation and rotation of the
earth, they who oppose this doctrine will be com-
pelled to renounce their opposition.

To siun up: I assert that the doctrine of the
plurality of existence is the only one that explains
what, without this doctrine, is inexplicable; that it
is at once eminently consolatory and strictly con-
formable with the most rigorous justice ; and that it
is the anchor of safety which God in His Mercy has
provided for mankind.

The words of Jesus Himself are explicit as to the
truth of this last assertion; for we read in the third
chapter of the gospel according to St. John that
Jesus came replying to Nicodemus and thus ex-
pressed himself: ''Verily, verily, I tell thee that, if a
man be not bom again, he cannot see the Kingdom
of God/' And when Nicodemus inquires, "how can
a man be bom when he is old? Can he enter again
into his mother's womb and be bom a second time?''
Jesus replies, ''Except a man be bom of water and
of the spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God,
What is bom of the Hesh is Aesh, and what is born
of the spirit is spirit. Be not amazed at what I have
told thee; you must be born again,"

CHAPTER XXIII.

LESSONS IN HINDU SPIRITISM AND

MAGIC

Whoso should wish to recount all the Arts and
Operations which in these times be reputed and
preached abroad as Wisdom and Magical Secrets;
he should as well undertake to count the waves and
the sands of the Sea; seeing that the matter hath
come to such a pass that every trick of a buffoon is
believed to be Magic, that all the abominations of
impious Enchanters, all Diabolical Illusions, all
Pagan Idolatries, all Superstitions, Fascinations,
Diabolical Pacts, and lastly all that the gross blind-
ness of the World can touch with its hands and feet
is reckoned as Wisdom and Magic : The Physician,
the Astrologer, the Enchanter, the Sorceress, the
Idolater, and the Sacrilegious, is called by common
people a Magician: Also he who draweth his
Magic whether from the Sun, whether from the
moon, whether from the Evil Spirits, whether from
Stones, Herbs, Animals, Brutes, or lastly from
thousand divers sources, so that the Spirits are

363

364 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

astonished thereat. There be certain ones who draw
their Magic from Air, from Earth, from Fire, from
Water, from Physiognomy, from the Land, from
Mirrors, from Glasses, from Birds, from Bread,
from Wine, and even from the very excrements

themselves; and yet, however, all this is reputed as
Magic.

I exhort you, ye who. read, to have the fear of
God, and to study Justice, because infallibly unto you
shall be opened the Gate of the True Wisdom which
the Hindu Priests and Adepts gave unto their
Disciples and unto their descendants. It is this Wis-
dom and Magical Knowledge that delivers man from
the torments of his soul and Evil Spirits, and it has
been taught to every true Disciple who desires to
learn this ancient mystery of Magical Rites of Hin-
du Spirit Art and East Indian Occultism. I, Dr. L.
W. de Laurence (upon whom has fallen the solemn
duty of writing and arranging this volume) am
considered the only person who has the legitimate
right to teach these mysteries in this country, as all
who will say that have read and studied "The Great
Book of Magical Art, Hindu Magic and East Indian
Occultism," by Dr. L. W. de Laurence, that the same
is a most excellent work, teaching in full all the Im-
precations, Benedictions, Conjurations; as well as
the solemn Rites of Initiation in the Temples and
Lamaseries of India, Arabia, China and other East-

SOUL EEINCABNATION. 365

ern and Oriental lands, therefore I am certainly well
qualified to teach and advance an opinion on Art
Magic and the greatest mystery known to man,
which is "Death."

Therefore, let everyone know that this, which I
now teach unto you, and that which I have taught is
the True Wisdom and Magic, and which is in this
same "Book of Magical Art,** and independent of
any other Science, or Wisdom, or Magic, soever. It
is, however, certainly true that these miraclous oper-
ations have much in common with the Hindu Spirit-
ism; it is also true that there be other Arts which
have some stamp of Wisdom; which alone would
be worth nothing were they not mingled with the
foundation of the Sacred Wisdom of the Hindus,
whence later arose the Mixed Qabalah,

THE GENUINE SYSTEM and METHOD
OF HINDU SPIRITISM

The genuine System and Method of Hindu Ma^ic, and Spirit Invocation
advocated and ffiyen in the following pages of "THE BOOK OF DEATH '*
is the Hindu manner of Teaching Invocations, which of course, makes it
ancient and unique. In OCCULTISM, that is to say the Science, Power
and Knowledge of the Secret of the control of the Spiritual Forces of the
Astral World, there has always been two great schools, the one Great in. Good,
the other in Evil, as referred to in the beginning of this Volume. The former
depends on the Knowledge and Invocation of the Good and Powerful Spirits;
the latter on the peculiar method of Invocation of the Evil Spirits. The for-
mer is termed Sacred or True Spiritism, as oppesed to the latter, or Black Art.
The Invocation of Good and Friendly Spirits is the system taught by the true
Adept, as also are the Ceremonies of Pact with Evil Spirits for their submis-
sion. However, the system of Hindu Teachings, taught in ** THE BOOK OF
DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM " is based on the following laws and con-
ception: (1) That the Good Spirits, Angelic Forces and Rulers of the Astral
World are far superior in power to the Evil Forces which are the fallen spirits
of Darkness. (2) That these latter as a means of their redemption must be re-
incarnated again. (This idea is to be found also in True Occultism or as it is
frequently and perhaps more correctly written. Zabino.) (8) As a consequence
of this doctrine, all ordinary material effects and phenomena are produced by
the labor of the Lower Spirits under th% command usually of the Good. (4)
That consequently whenever the Evil Spirits can escape from the control of
the Good, there is no evil that they will not work by way of vengence. (6) That
therefore, sooner than obey man, they will try to make him Uieir servant, by
inducing him to conclude Pacts and Agreements with them. (6) That to fur-
ther this project they will use every means that offers to obsess him. (7) That
in order to become an Adept, therefore, and dominate them, tJie greatest pos-
sible firmness of willf purity of soul and intent, and power oj self-control
is necessary, (8) That this is only to be attained by self-abnegation on every
plane. (9) That man therefore is the middle nature and natural controller be-
tween the Good and the Evil Spirits and that, therefore, to each man is at-
tached naturally both by a Guadrian Angel and a Malevolent Spirit, and also
certain Spirits that may become Familiar, so that with him it rests to give
the victory unto which be will. (10) That, therefore, in order to control aiid
make service of the Lower and Evil, the knowledge of the Higher and Good
is requisite (i. e. in the language of the Theosophy of the present day, the
knowledge of the Higher Self).

From this it results that the teachings propounded in this work is by
purity and self-denial to obtain the knowledge of and conversation with one's
Guardian Angel, so that thereby and thereafter we may obtain the power of
suppressing the Evil Spirits whenever they desire to do us injury.

This, then, is the system of Hindu Spiritism as tau^^ht by the Hindu Adept
to his Disciple and elaborated down to the smallest pomts.

A Good Spirit, if attracted into an assembly of good persons would endeav<-
or to excite their ideas toward good, while an Evil Spirit attracted among
evil-minded persons would incite them mentally to crime. Among how many
criminals is not their only excuse that **th€y thought they kept hearing
something telling them to commit the crime." Yet these suggestions would
not always arise from Elemeotals alone, but frequently from the depraved
Astral remnants of deceased evil persons, or Earth-bound Spirits.

Evil Spirits, on the other hand, are far more powerful than Elementals,
for their action for Evil is parallel to that of the Good Spirits for Good; and
their malignancy is far more terrible than that of the Evil Elementals, for not
being, like them, subjected to the limits of certain currents, their spheieof
operation extends over a far greater area; while the Evil they commit is never
irrational or mechanical, but worked with full consciousness and intent.

The necessity of the invocation of the Divine and Angelic Forces or Good
Spirits to control the Evil Spirits is invariably insisted upon in the operation
of Invocations described and taught in all my published works. So that it is
not so much, as I have said before, this circumstance, as the mode of its de-

387

368 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

▼elopmsnt by oar study and preparation, which is not nnnsnal ; while aealn
Uie Uiorough and complete classification of the Spirits with their officers, and
ci the effects to be produced by their services, is not to be found elsewhere.

CONFIDENCE

Of all hindrances to Magical action, the very greatest and most fatal is
unbeUe/t for its checks and stops the action of the Will. Even in the com-
monest natural operations we see this. No child could learn to walk, no
student could assimilate the formulas of any science, were doubt and the
impracticability and impossibility of so doing is the first thing in his mind.
Therefore it is that all AdepU and Great Teachers of Religion and of Magic
hK99 invariably insisted on the necessity of faith.

The writer could never understand, what many think an imperative
necessity, for thtim to study and interest themselves in the many different
methods and teachings of Occultism, for every student should select some
good Adept's Teachings, which he must first decide for himself to be good,
then follow them closely and earnestly, showing a marked intolerance for
other teachings differing from the ones he has selected.

Further, I must say that it has been my experience to find that it is rather
the abuse through ignorance of their meaning, which causes some hasty one
to decry the worthlessness of certain teachings, than their inteUigflut and pro-
perly regulated use, for if the Disciple be pure in mind, and have developed
the clairvoyant faculty which is latent in every human being, and which is
based on the utilication of the thought-vision, he will succeed. This soul sight,
spoken of in the Scriptures as the ** Inner or Spiritual Sight," is exercised
almost unconsciously by every one in thinking of either a place, person or a
thing, which they know well : immediately, coincident with the thought, the
image springs before the mental sight; and it is but the conscious and volun-
tary development of this which is the basis of what is commonly called clair-
voyance. Among the Highlanders of Scotland, this faculty, as is well known,
is of common manifestation: and by the English is usually spoken of as
** Second Sight.**

-PENTACLES AND SYMBOLS-

Pentacles and Symbols are valuable as an equilibrated and fitting basis
for the reception of Magical force ; but unless the Operator can really attract
that force to them, they are nothing but so many dead, and to him worthless,
diagrams. But used by the Initiate or Adept who fully comprehends their
meaning they become to him a powerful protection and aid, seconding and
focussing the working of his Will, as well as the Power of the Spirits he has
invoked.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion I desire it to be known and understood that there are many
who will fail to understand why the following system and methods of Hindu
Invocation have found to be fitting and suitable in a volume of this kind.
R^arding this, let all mankind know that this has been customary in all ages
of man. However, he who does not care to take up the exercises need not do
so, let him study the volume in its forepart, he wtU be mare than recom^
pented for hit time and trouble.

FurUier **The Book of Death and Hindu Spiritism'* has been written
sorely as a help to the genuine Occult student and those faithful souls who
desire Knowledge and V^sdom ; and that for the opinion of the ordinary
literary critic who neither understands nor believes in Spiritism or Occultism.

I care nothing. ^ ^ ^

Dr, de Laurence,

CHAPTER XXIV.

INSTRUCTION FOR THE INVOCATION AND
CONVOCATION OF SPIRITS

Occult Treasures,OccuIt Powers and Instructions
in Sacred Magic have been buried and concealed un-
der the centuries of the eternal past, far from
the reach of the dizzy and unsteady hand of the Ma-
terialist, who has been wandering in the blind blank
faith of Materialism ; who is neither able to grasp the
seal of Eastern Magic or the great power that lives
within his own self. This wisdom and certain Indian
Teachings are laid before him in this volume of
Death and Hindu Spiritism. These teachings
are more valuable to mankind than gold or precious
stones and are given with a free hand, including all
such advice and admonition as are necessary for the
Disciple and Student to safely enter the great Sacred
Temple of Magic. The veil which has been closed
for centuries is here drawn aside and if the student
is sincere and wise he will profit by these Mysteries
and Occult Teachings which may themselves seem
strange and weird as he advances in the teachings,
mysteries and Rites of Hindu Magic. A new world

869

370 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

and existence will be open to him and the more he
learns of Spirits of the Astral Plane the more
he will realize and learn to know himself. The
teachings of Indian Occultism are different from the
teachings of Physiology and Materialism. Material-
istic teachings make a man impotent and a thing that
is driven and tossed as a wave of the sea by the
storm. Materialism will have man think that he is
an animal. The knowledge of Eastern Wisdom
proves to him that he is a power within himself and,
that the invisible powers and forces are the stronger
and predominate and that when he develops this
power he will become invested with a force that will
enable him to control his destiny and protect himself
and family as they should be protected by a true
father and Master. Materialism teaches man that
Life is not Eternal and that he is to live but a few
short years and then be condemned to Eternal Fire.
Hindu Spiritism shows him that he is a part of the
great Universe and that he has always existed and
shall always continue to exist.

SACRED MAGIC

Sacred Magic teaches him the true nature of his
soul and that his earthly existence is -merely an
experience in his Eternal Life and career.
The Occult Spirit Powers of the soul which
are potentially contained in every man, but

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 371

understood and developed by few, are in a sense
strange and unknown to the Materialistic Scientists
of the Western countries and who appoints himself
the guardian and officer of modern civilization. The
learning of these guardians is far from the teachings
of true Wisdom. Their intellect seeking the small
materialistic powers around them cannot perceive the
Occult and Astral Powers above them, nor realize
their existence. Yet, Ancient Wisdom is as old as the
mountains of India and has been known and taught
by all prophets and by every great philosopher that
has ever lived and inhabited the earth. The funda-
mental and cardinal principle as found in ancient
Hindu Sanscrit and in the Scriptures of the Holy
Book form the principle and essence of the power
that Christ taught and revealed unto his Disciples.
In ancient times they were revealed unto those
who were found worthy of being initiated into the
Temples of Ancient and Mystic India. The dis-
closure of Sacred Magic in these times as in the
present to the vulgar was forbidden. These teach-
ings are not to be confounded with Diabolical Art ;
for the Arts that are taught by the western imposter
are like the flickering light of the candle in the
face of the Holy Sun. True Magic is only possessed
by those who have developed Spirit Power. This
has been verified by every true and practical Occult
Student who has power of intellect and firmness, so

872 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

as to enable him to learn and understand these great
mysteries which are hidden and concealed from the
unworthy. The above teachings do not merely point
out to him the theories of true knowledge but render
him wise and strong in Occult forces. The true
student which studies these teachings and Magical
Rites by nature, becomes a part of this light that
serves to illuminate and drive out the worms from the
deep dark caverns of the Materialist's mind and soul.
What the Hindu Adept and Master teaches has been
verified and amplified by all of the immortal minds
of the past and the Western student has names to
look up to which are famous and which are engraved
upon the monumental steps of the stairway of the
past. As written above, this Art in the past as
in the future will, when once unfolded, teach
the secrets to those who will become purified and
faithful in their^uls and, as man's Occult Powers
become illuminated, tlie darkness around him (Ma-
terialism) will disappear and in its place will come
the true light of Wisdom and knowledge; for once
man's soul has been invested with Occult Powers it
becomes free in its action and movements and he is
no longer bound by the cruel bands and cords of
Materialism for the soul then becomes powerful and
can and will instruct itself while at the same time it
will be assisted, guided and instructed by Astral
Spirits. When this grand state of Occult
Powers becomes developed it becomes its

SOUL REINCARNATION. 873

guide. The soul is then no longer subject
to the conditions of time, or materialistic laws. Its
existence is eternal and for a soul to desire a thing
is already to possess it. Man's ability to advance
in these powers will be in proportion to his desires.
Desire will raise the curtain and will let Spiritual
light penetrate into his soul that it may be able to see
and realize things around him in the Spirit world,
the same as if they were Material and External ob-
jects. Man's soul, once it has developed Spirit
Power, becomes one with the spirit. Man is then
able to communicate and converse mentally with
mankind and with the spirits of the Astral Plane
same as if they were living in the physical body.
Man is also able to perform great and mysterious
things, for there is a certain kind of Spirit and Oc-
cult Magic which has its existence in the Astral
World.

These forces and powers are placed within and
not without the soul of man and he has within him-
self the power of entering in communication with
these forces by the law and principle of realization"
However, it is a fact that these Invisible Forces
(Evil Spirits) can control a man and break him
down with perfect ease, unless he understands the
Magical Teachings and how to overcome and dispel
their power. He is then able to dominate- instead of

374 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

being dominated and he can control them so that
they will obey him and understand certain signs.

A man who is not properly developed should
understand and always bear in mind that
in* trying to demonstrate and work these things
for himself, that he is working with a powerful and
unseen force and unless he has the true teachings his
efforts will be a curse unto him and he would far
better be dead than to try these things for the gratifi-
cation of his own personal curiosity. Again he will
understand this great power from out of his soul, for
the curse that hangs around the neck of the Western
man is a deficiency of knowledge of himself, because
when a man does not know himself he does not know
and understand the things of the Occult and Invis-
ible world ; for how could he, when he himself is a
part of this world and if he has no knowledge of
himself how could he understand the Spirit World,
because man must develop the Spirit Power that lies
within himself and it is then and only then that he
begins to get the knowledge and realization of the
power and forces of the Invisible world.

SPIRITUAL POWER

Eiach man is the essence of Spiritual Power and
he should know that he possesses Spiritual Power as
well as the Physical force; that he possesses one kind
Qf knowledge as well as another and if he

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 375

does not find these powers by not applying himself he
must not think that he does not possess them, for he
has not proved himself capable or deserving of their
being developed within him. Every soul should bear
strictly in mind that the growth or capacity of his
soul lies in the extent to which it developes Astral
truth and power and not by basing every conclusion
upon External teachings, for as stated in these
writings, Materialistic things are an illusion. The
writer in this volume has spoken of many things
such as Spirits, Dreams and other secret things. He
has also given valuable knowledge for the soul who
believes or has some sort of belief in a future con-
tinuation of their soul. The other person, the writer
cares nothing about, as it is not his idea to convert
any man against his will, for he is as welcome to his
belief and thoughts as he is to the air he breathes as
far as he is concerned, because they harm no one but
himself and the true student of Occultism and the
true soul who desires to become a recipient of Divine
Light and Sacred teachings pays no attention to the
remarks or dictates of the Materialist because the
same are oracle and dogmatic. If this rare Volume
and its teachings of wisdom make no impression
upon their mind it is only because they fail to
recognize the true light when it shines in their eyes,
for True wisdom and absolute truth can only come to
any man by a clear and positive knowledge of them

876 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

for he cannot receive it and accept it through Ma-
terialistic theories or arguments.

FAMILIAR SPIRITS

Though it should be an easy matter for you to em-
ploy Familiar Spirits to annoy your neighbor, seek to
abstain therefrom, unless it were to repress the in-
solence of such as might attempt aught against you
personally. Never keep the Familiar Spirits around
you for curiosity, and should you wish to give one
over unto any person, see that such person be dis-
tinguished and meritorious, for they love not to
serve those of base and common condition. But
should such person unto whom you give them have
made some express Pact (with Spirits) in such case
Familiar Spirits will fly in haste to serve him.

LICENSING A SPIRIT TO DEPART

In our teachings of Art Magic great stress is laid
on the importance of licensing a Spirit invoked on
the Operation being completed to depart, and if he
be unwilling, of even compelling him against his will
to return to his place. It must remembered here, in
these Operations of Magic that not only your Ora-
tory but your bed-chamber also be kept pure and con-
secrated, and therefore it would be next to impossible
for an Evil Spirit to break through to attach you.
But in all Magical Evocations by the Circle, the

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 377

Chela (Disciple) should never quit the same, with-
out having licensed and even forced the Evil Spirits
to depart ; as cases are on record of the Operator ex-
periencing sudden death. I, myself, was present in
India on an occasion when in the Evocation by the
Circle, the Chela incautiously having stooped for-
ward and outward just over the limit of the Circle,
received a shock like that from a powerful electric
battery (the same being Astral Fluid Projected
by Spirits) which nearly threw him down,
struck the Magical Sword from his hand, and
sent him staggering back to the center of
the Circle. Compare also with this advice any
Adept's experience in these strange operations when
his hand accidentally goes beyond the limits of the
Circle when he is replenishing his candles during
an Evocation,

GAMING

Also you shall shun gaming as you would the
plague, because it ever is an occasion of Blasphemy.
Also during these studies and instructions prayer
and the study of the Sacred Pooks of Scripture
should take the place of the gaming with you.

All this advice, and much more which every Oc-
cultist will be certain to receive from Astral Spirits,
I have here set down, so that by observing the same
perfectly, without failing in the slightest particular,

378 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

you shall at the end of the Operation find the value
thereof. I am now, therefore, about to give you
distinct and sufficient information how to employ
Occult Powers, and how to proceed if you wish to
acquire others.

You are then to understand that once he who
operateth hath the power it is not necessary (in all
c^ses) to use written symbols, but it may suffice to
name aloud the Name of the Spirit, and the form
in which you wish him to appear visibly, because
once they have taken Oath this sufficeth. These
Symbols, then, be made for you to avail yourself of
them when you be in the company of other per-
sons ; also you must have them upon you, so that in
touching or handling them simply they may repre-
sent your wish. Immediately then he unto whom
the Symbol appertaineth will serve you punctually,
but if you should desire something special which is
in no way connected with or named in the Symbol
it will be necessary to signify the same at least by
showing your desire by two or three words. And
here it is well to observe that if you use prudence
you can often reason with those persons who be
with you in such a manner that the Spirits, having,
however, been beforehand invoked by you, will un-
derstand what they are to do ; but it is necessary to
discover your intent unto them by words, for they
be of such great intelligence that from a single word

SOUL BEINCARNATION. 879

or a single motive they can* draw the construction
of the whole matter, and although they cannot at
all times penetrate into the inmost parts of the
human mind, yet nevertheless by their astuteness
and subtlety they are so adroit that they comprehend
by perceptible signs the wish of the person in ques-
tion.

But when it is a grave and important matter you
should retire into a secret place apart, provided it be
appropriate, for any place is good to invoke the
Spirits proper unto the Operation. There give them
their commission regarding that which you wish
them to perform, which they will either execute
then or in the days following. But always give
them the signal by word of mouth, or in any other
manner that may be pleasing unto you whenever
you wish them to begin to operate. But in all of
these Arts, which be conjoined and mingled to-
gether with the Sacred Hindu Magic, both he who
maketh use of these same, either alone, or mingled
with some other things which be in way from Spirit-
ism, and he who seeketh to exercise himself in
performing other operations without these Arts,
is alike liable to be deceived by Evil Spirits, seeing
that of themselves they possess no other virtue than
a natural power, and they can produce no other
thing than Astral effects and they have absolute
power in spiritual and Astral things; but if, how-

880 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

ever, on certain occasions they cause you to behold
any extraordinary effect, such is only produced by
impious and diabolical Pacts and Conjurations,
which form of Science ought to be called Sorcery.
In these you will see how one should constrain
the Spirits, and what one should ask of them; also
how to dismiss them without hurt, and how one
should make answer unto their demands and pre-
sentiments.

SPIRIT MAGIC

All that I am about to say unto you now is not
superfluous, because it is certain that any one who
shall have observed with a true heart and firm reso-
lution the advice which I have g^ven regarding
Spirit Magic will be instructed with so much thor-
oughness and clearness by his Astral Guides that no
doubtful point will present itself which he will not
be able easily to clear up of himself.

The student will also be sufficiently shown how
on every or any occasion he who operateth should
comport himself as regardeth the Spirits; that is to
say, as their Lord and not as their Servitor ; neither
should you be unreasonable or mean, seeing that
you are not treating with men but with Spirits, of
whom each one knoweth more than you all together.

Now if you shall make some demand unto a
Spirit and he shall refuse to execute it, first well

SOUL EEINCAENATION. 381

and carefully examine and consider whether it be
in the power and nature of the Spirit to whom you
make such demand to fulfill same. For one Spirit
knoweth not all things, and that which appertaineth
unto the one another knoweth not. For this reason
see that ye will take heed before endeavoring to
force them to perform a matter. Yet if, however,
the Inferior Spirits be disobedient you shall call
their Superiors and remind them of the oaths which
they have taken unto you and of the chastisement
which awaiteth the breaking of such vows.

And immediately, on beholding your steadfast-
ness, they will obey you; but should they not you
ought then to invoke your Guardian Spirit, whose
chastisement they will quickly feel. Yet, notwith-
standing, you should never employ harsh means in
order to have that which you can obtain by gentle-
ness and courtesy.

CONSECRATED WAND

In order to make a consecrated Wand, procure
unto thyself a piece of birdseye maple wood the
length of 14 inches. The same should be shaved
and polished down until it is about five-eighths of an
inch in diameter, the same being nearly or perfectly
round.

Next procure unto thyself four waxen candles,
and on the night of Wednesday at the hour of ten,

882 DEATH AND HINDU SPIEITISM.

set these candles upon a table, two at each end of
this piece of maple wood. Light them and let them
bum until they are entirely or about burned out.
The piece of. maple wood the while lying on the
table between them.

Next procure unto thyself one-half ounce of pure
oil of the olive, pour the same unto a small woolen
cloth and varnish and rub the oil into this piece of
maple wood, rubbing and polishing the same until
it is entirely smooth. This Wand should be placed
under thy pillow for five successive nights.

Next procure unto thyself a piece of purple cloth,
preferably velvet, and when not using this Wand
keep the same rolled therein and do not allow strange
hands to handle it, neither should thee expose or re-
veal it to unworthy or unscrupulous persons; but
the same should be revealed only to faithful, discreet
and chosen friends. All of thy operations and
knowledge of Occult things should be kept from
prating companions whose misbelief and unworthi-
ness hinders and disturbs the effects and result of
every Magical operation for it is the desire of Astral
Spirits that ye seek not the companionship of him
who is unworthy of thy trust and faith, and I do
here admonish and caution thee to be discreet and
secret and neither manifest nor teach to any person
thy work, or place, or time, nor desire, or will, ex-
cept it be to a Master or Companion, who must like-

SOUL REINCARNATION. 883

wise be Silent, Faithful, Discreet, and dignified by
nature and education.

INVOCATION

If during the Invocation they should appear with
tumult and insolence fear nothing; neither give way
to anger, but appear to make no account thereof.
Only show them the Consecrated Wand, and if they
continue to make a disturbance smite upon the Altar
twice or thrice therewith and all will be still.

It should be noted that after you shall have
licensed them to depart, and they shall have disap-
peared you shall take a small tray or plate and put
perfume therein, place it in the room wherein the
Spirits shall have appeared, and you shall perfume

the place all around, for otherwise the Spirits might
work some evil unto persons entering by chance

therein.

You shall the day after take away all the Ashes
from the tray and cast it into a secret place; but
above all thinks take care not to throw it either into
a river or into the navigable sea.

But should you desire to procure for yourself
various other Magical Secrets leave the Ashes and
all things in place, as I shall also describe more
particularly later in this chapter.

Also, should you wish it, you can retain your
arrangements in place, and keep the room where

884 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

you carry on your meditation and study proper and
clean, as well as the table, which latter you may
place in a comer, should it incommode you in the
center of the room. For in this Apartment, if it be
not contaminated nor profaned, you may every Sat-
urday enjoy the presence of your Guardian Spirit,
which is one of the most sublime things which you
can desire in this Sacred Art.

The good Spirits may be invocated of us, or
by us, divers ways, and they in sundry shapes and
manners offer themselves to us, for they openly
speak to those that watch, and do offer themselves
to our sight or do inform us by dreams and by
oracle of those things which we have a great desire
to know. Whoever therefore would call any good
Spirit to speak or appear in sight he must particu-
larly observe two things, one whereof i^ about the
disposition of the invocant, the other concerning
those things which are outwardly to\be adhered to
in the invocation for the conformitv of the Spirit
to be called.

It is necessary therefore that the invocant relig-
iously dispose himself for the space of two days to
such a mystery, and to conserve himself during the
time, chasten, abstinent and to abstract himself as
much as he can from all manner of foreign and
secular business ; likewise he should observe fasting,
as much as shall seem convenient to him, and let

SOUL BEINCAENATION, 885

him daily^ between sun rising and setting, being
clothed in clean linen, seven times call upon God,
and make a deprecation unto the Spirits to be called
and invocated, according to the rule which I will
teach you. The number of days of fasting and
preparation is commonly from one to two days.

Now, concerning the place; it must be chosen
clean, pure, close, quiet, free from all manner of
noise and not subject to any stranger's presence.
This place must first of all be exorcised and conse-
crated, and let there be a Table or Altar placed
therein, covered with a clean white linen cloth and
set towards the east, and on each side thereof place
two consecrated wax-light burning candles, the flame
thereof ought not to go out during your operation.
In the middle of the Altar thereof let there be placed
clean writing paper, covered with fine linen cloth,
which is not to be raised until the end of the opera-
tion. Then set a censer or small tray on the head of
the Altar, wherein you shall kindle a holy fire by
burning tincttjre of benzoin or wood alcohol one tea-
spoonful, and nxike a precious perfume of rose petals
every day that you pray.

Now for your habit; you shall have a long gar-
ment of white linen, close before and behind, which
may come down quite over the feet, and gird your-
self about the loins with a girdle. You shall like-
wise have a small stand cover of pure white linen

886 DEATH AND HINDU 8PIEITISM.

on which must be wrote in a Purple Ink the name
Zetragrazzation ; all of which things are to be con-
secrated and sanctified in order by prayer. But you
must not go into this holy place till it be first aired
and then you may enter, and when you enter therein
you shall make a perfimie upon the altar, and then
on your knees pray before the altar as I shall have
directed you.

Now when the time is come for you to invoke
spirits, you shall fast more strictly, and fasting on
the day following, at the rising of the sun, enter the
holy place, using the ceremonies before you shall
make a cross with olive oil on the forehead and anoint
your eyes, using prayer in all these consecrations.
You shall next pray before the Altar upon your
knees, and then an invocation may be made as fol-
lows:

"In the name of the Blessed and Holy Adepts, I
do desire ye, strong and mighty Spirits (here name
the Spirit or Spirits you would have appear), that
if it be the Divine Will of Him Who is called Zetra-
grazzation, etc., the Holy Spirit, the Father, that ye
take upon ye some shape as best becometh your
Astral nature and appear to me visibly here in this
place and answer my demands, in as far as I shall
not transgress. the bounds of the Divine mercy and
goodness, by requesting unlawful knowledge, but

SOUL REINCARNATION. 387

that thou wilt graciously show me what things are
most profitable for me to know and do, to the glory
and honor of His Divine Majesty, who liveth and
reigneth world without end. Amen."

"Lord, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in
heaven; make clean my heart within me, and take
not Thy Holy Spirit from m£. O Lord, by Thy
Name I have called them, suffer them to administer
unto me. And that all things may work together
for Thy Honor and Glory, to Whom with Thee
thy Son and blessed Spirit, be ascribed all might,
majesty and dominion, world without end. Amen/'

The Invocation being properly made the Good
Spirits will appear unto you which you desire, which
you shall entertain with a chaste communication
and license them to depart.

Now the Seal which is used to invoke any Good
Spirit must be made after the following manner:
Either in metal conformable or in new wax mixed
with convenient spices, or it may be m'ade with pure
white paper, and the outward form of it must be
square and not circular nor triangular, or of the like
sort^ according to the rule of the Hindus, on which
there must be written the names of the Astral Spir-
its you wish to invoke. And in the center of the
Seal draw a character of six corners. In the middle
thereof write the Name and Character of the Spirit,
also your name, to whom the Good Spirit that is to

888 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

be called into subject to your wishes. And about
this character let there be placed numbers i, 2, 3, 4,
as the Spirits you would call, many come together
at once. But if you should call only one, neverthe-
less there must be made four numbers wherein the
name of the Spirit or Spirits with their characters
are to be written. Now this seal ought to be com-
posed on those days and hours when the Moon is in
her increase, and if you take fortunate months,
which iare May, January and July, therewith, it will
be better for the producing of the effect, which
seal being rightly made in the manner I have fully
described must be consecrated according to the rules
above delivered.

And this is the way of making the general seal and
invocation of all Spirits whatever, the form whereof
you may see in seals and plates. I will yet declare
unto you another rite more easy to perform this
thing : Let the Man who wishes to receive an oracle
from a Spirit be chaste, pure and sanctified; then
choose a place being pure, clean and covered not
with dust or filth, and on the Lord's day in the new
of the Moon let him enter into the place clothed
with clothing that is clean; let him exorcise the
place, bless it and make a circle therein with a piece
of tailor's chalk, let there be written in the outer
part of the Circle the Names of the Astral Spirits
he wishes to have appear, in the inner part thereof

SOUL BEINCAENATION. 880

write the name of Mjura. Have the vessels for
the perfumes ready and burning. You must now
pray towards the East this whole Psalm :

"Blessed are the undefiled in the way, etc."
(Psalm cix.) Then make a fumigation and depre-
cate the Spirits by their Names that they will appear
unto you and reveal or discover that which you so
earnestly desire, and do this continually for one-half
hour. Next enter the Circle, perfume it, and anoint
thyself with the Oil of the Olive upon the forehead,
eyes and in the palms of both hands and upon the
feet, then with bended knees say the Psalm aforesaid,
with Divine and Angelical Names. Which being
said arise and walk around the Circle from East to
West until thou shalt receive a communication or
impression to sit like a Hindu, legs crossed, down in
the Circle, where thou mayest rest, and thou wilt be
wrapped up in an ecstacy, and a Spirit will appear
and inform thee of all things necessary to be known.
You must observe also that in the Circle there ought
to be four waxen candles burning at the Four Parts
of the World, which ought not to want light for the
space of your operation.

And the manner of eating is this, to abstain from
all things having a life of the wild animal, and from
those which do proceed from them, drink only pure
running water ; neither is there any food or wine to
be taken for two hours before this operation. Let

800 DEATH AND HINDU SPIRITISM.

the perfume and the Oil of the Olive be made as is
set forth in Exodus and other holy books of the
Bible. It is also to be observed that as often as you
enter the Circle have in your right hand a seal as
described above, upon which must be written the
name Zetragrazzation, in the manner I have be-
fore mentioned. Other directions for invoking
Astral Spirits are as follows:

Make a small book containing the names of the

days of the week when you intend to have your
operations ; the names of the Astral Spirits you de-
sire to invoke; a seal as above described, which be-
ing done thou shalt consecrate the same unto God
and unto the pure Spirits in the manner following :
Thou shalt set in the destined place a small table
covered with a white cloth, whereon thou shalt lay
the Book opened at the seal, which should be drawn
on the first leaf of the said Book, and having kin-
dled a candle, which should be placed in the center
of the table, thou shalt surround the said table with
a circle, clothe thyself in the proper vestments, as
directed above, and holding the Book open repeat
upon thy knees the following prayer with great
humility :

THE PRAYER

"Adonai, Elohim, El, Eheieh Asher Eheieh,
Prince of Princes, Existence of Existences, have

SOUL REINCABNATION. 891

mercy upon me, and cast Thine eyes upon Thy
servant (here call your own name) who invoketh
Thee most devoutly, and supplicateth Thee by Thy
Holy and tremendous Name, Zetragrazzation, to
be propitious and to order Thine Astral Spirits to
come and take up their abode in this place; O, ye
Angels and Spirits of the Stars; O, all ye Angels
and Elementary Spirits; O, all ye Spirits present
before the Face of God, I, the Minister and faithful
Servant of the Most High, conjure ye, let God Him-
self, the Existence of Existences, conjure ye to come
and be present at this Operation, I, the Servant of
God, most humbly entreat ye. Amen."

After which thou shalt burn incense for fifteen
full minutes, and thou shalt replace the Book on the
aforesaid table, taking heed that the Fire on the
candles be kept up continually during the operation
and keeping thy eyes closed when praying. Repeat
the same Ceremony for seven days, beginning with
Saturday, and perfuming the Book each day with
the Incense proper at the same hour and taking heed
that the candle shall burn on the day and hour of
your operation, after which thou shalt shut up the
Book in a small drawer under the table, made ex-
pressly for it, until thou shalt have occasion to use
it, and every time that thou wishest to use it clothe
thyself with thy vestments, kindle the candles and

803 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

repeat upon thy knees the aforesaid prayer,
"Adonai, Elohim," etc.

It is necessary also in the Consecration of the
Book to summon all the Spirits whose names are
written therein, which thou shalt do with devotion;
and even if the Spirits appear not in the Consecra-
tion of the Book be not thou astonished thereat,
seeing that they are of a pure nature and conse-
quently have much difficulty in familiarizing them-
selves with men who are inconstant and impure, but
the Ceremonies and Characters being correctly car-
ried out, devoutly and with perseverance, they will
be constrained to come, and it will at length happen
that at thy first invocation thou wilt not be able to
see and communicate with them. But I advise thee
to undertake nothing unclean or impure, for then thy
importunity, far from attracting them will only serve
to keep them from thee ; and it will be thereafter
exceedingly difficult for thee to attract them for use
for pure ends.

CHAPTER XXV.

SACRED MAGIC

1. Take heed before all things to perform no
Magical Operation whatsoever, or Invocations of
the Spirits unless necessary on the Sabbath Day,
during the whole period of your life, seeing that
that day is consecrated unto God, and is the day on
which you should repose and sanctify yourself and
you should solemnize it by prayers.

2. Keep yourself as you would from the Eternal
Fire, from manifesting unto any living being that
which your Guardian Spirit shall have confided unto
you, excepting unto him who hath given unto you
the Operation, unto whom you have, as it were, a
greater obligation than unto your own father.

3. As far as lieth in your power take heed in no
way to make use of this Art against your neighbor,
except for a just Vengeance ; although I counsel you
even in this particular to imitate God, who par-
doneth even you yourself, and there is not in the
world a more meritorious action than to pardon.

4. In the case of your Astral Guide dissuading
you from some Operation, and forbidding you to do

393

394 DEATH AND mNDU SPIRITISM.

the same, keep well from becoming obstinate therein,
for you would in such a case ever repent it.

5. Fly all kinds of (Evil) Science, Magic and
Enchantment, because they be all Diabolical Inven-
tions ; also put no trust in books which teach them,
though in appearance they may seem reliable to you,
for these be nets which the perfidious and evil
stretcheth out to take you.

"The Soul that turneth after such as have familiar
spirits, and after wizards, I will even set my face
against that soul, and will cut him off from among
his people." (Lev. xx. 6.)

"A man also or a woman that hath a familiar
spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to
death ; they shall stone them with stones ; their blood
shall be upon them." (Lev. xx. 27.)

6. In conversing with Spirits, Good or Evil,
never employ words which you do not understand,
because even so will you have shame and hurt.

7. You will never demand of your Astral Guide
any Symbol wherewith to operate for an Evil end,
seeing that you would grieve him. You will find
only too many persons who will beseech you to do
thus ; see that you do it not.

8. Accustom yourself as much as possible to
purity of body and cleanliness of raiment, seeing
that this is very necessary ; for the good Spirits love
purity.

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 395

9. As far as possible shun the employment of
your Magical Powers for others in evil things, but
first well consider him to whom you would render
a service; because it often happeneth that in doing
service unto another one worketh evil for oneself.

ID. In no way attempt to procure the Operation
of the Higher Grade of Astral Spirits unless you
have extreme need thereof, seeing that these spirits
be so far above you that it is useless for you to wish
to compare yourself unto them, you being nothing in
comparison of them who are the Angels of God.

11. If the Operations can be performed by the
Astral Spirits it is not necessary to employ others
therein.

12. Though it should be an easy matter for you
to employ your Familiars to annoy your neighbors,
seek to abstain therefrom, unless it were to repress
the insolence of such as might attempt aught against
you personally. Never keep the Familiar Spirits
in idleness, and should you wish to give one over
unto any person, see that such person be distin-
guished and meritorious, ior they love not to serve
those of base and common condition. But should
such person unto whom you give them have made
some express Pact (with Spirits) in such case the
Familiar Spirits will fly in haste to serve him.

13. These instructions of this present Operation
ought to be read and reread an infinitude number

306 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

of times so that in the space of two weeks before
commencing he who operateth should be fully in-
structed and informed therein; and if he be not a
Jew he should further be conversant with many of
the customs and ceremonies which this Operation
demandeth, so as to become accustomed unto that
retirement which is so necessary and useful.

14. Should he who performeth this Operation
during the Six Months or Moons commit volun-
tarily any mortal sin prohibited by the Tables of
the Law be certain that he will never receive this
Wisdom.

15. Sleep in the da)rtime is entirely forbidden,
unless absolutely requisite, owing to some infirmity,
or to old age, or to debility of constitution, for God
is always willing to employ mercy towards man-
kind because of their infirmities.

16. If you have not the fixed intention of con-
tinuing the Operation I counsel you on no account
to commence it, because the Lord doth not care to
be mocked, and He chastiseth with corporeal mala-
dies those who make a mock of Him. Howbeit, he
who is hindered from continuing through some un-
foreseen accident, sinneth in no way.

17. It is possible for him who hath passed
seventy years of age to undertake this Operation.
Thus also was it the custom in the true and ancient

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 897

Hindu law concerning the Priesthood. Also he
should not be less than twenty years old.

1 8. You shall not permit the Astral Spirits
to familiarize themselves too much with you,
through your disputing and arguing with them;
because they will propound so many affairs and
things at once as to confound and trouble the mind.

19. With the Astral Spirits you should not
make use of the Symbols, but if you desire any-
thing command them aloud to perform it. Never
commence many Operations at once and in the same
time, but when you have finished one then b^gin
another, until you are perfect in the practice; for
an Apprentice Artist doth not become a Master sud-
denly, but little by little.

20. Without reasons of the very last impor-
tance the Four Princes or the Eight Sub-Princes
should never be summoned, because we must make
a great distinction between these and the others,
who are inferior to them.

21. In operating, as rarely as possible insist upon
the Spirits appearing visibly, and thus you will
work all the better, for it should suffice you for them
to say and do what you wish.

22. All prayers, Orations, Invocations and Con-
jurations, and in fact everything you have to say,
should be pronounced aloud and clearly, without.

398 DEATH AND HINDU SPIBITISM.

however, shouting like a madman, but speaking
clearly and naturally and pronouncing distinctly.

23. During the Moons you shall sweep the Ora-
tory every Sabbath eve, and keep it strictly clean,
for It is a place dedicated unto the Holy and Pure
Spirits.

24. Take heed that you commence no Operation
at night if it be important, unless the need be very
pressing.

25. Your only object during your whole life
should be to shun as far as possible an ill-regulated
life, and especially the vices of debauchery, gluttony
and drunkenness.

26. Having completed the Operation, and being
now the Disciple of the True Wisdom, you shall
fast one day before commencing to put any operation
into practice.

27. Every year you should make a commemora-
tion of the Signal benefit which the Lord conferred
upon you. At such time fasting, praying and hon-
oring your Guardian Spirit that day with your
whole strength.

28. During the Days on which you con-
strain the Spirits you shall fast, for this is essential,
so that when you are working you may find yourself
freer and more tranquil both in body and mind.

29. Note that the facts are to be understood as
being pven to the true Disciple and not otherwise.

SOUL BEINCABNATION. 899

30. Keep as an indubitable precept never to give
this Operation unto a Monarch, because Solomon
was the first who abused it; and if you should do
the contrary both you and your successors would
alike lose the Grace hereof. With regard to this
command, I myself having been sought by the rich
man, gave him willingly the best Astral Spirit
which I had, but I steadily refused to give him the
Operation, and it should not be given unto Emperors,
Kings or other Sovereigns unless they are sincere.

3 1 . You may assuredly give, but it is not permis-
sible to sell this Operation for great profit, for this
would be to abuse the Grace of the Lord who hath
given unto you, and should you act contrariwise unto
this you would lose its control.

32. Should you perform this Operation in a
town you should take a house which is not at all
overlooked by any one; seeing that in this present
day curiosity is so strong that you ought to be
upon your guard, and there ought to be a garden
(adjoining the house) wherein you can take exer-
cise.

33. Take well heed during the Moons or Months
to lose no blood from your body, except that which
the expulsive virtue in you may expel naturally of
its own accord.

34. Finally, during the whole time, you shall
touch no dead body of an animal of any description
soever.

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